The Red Crescent Moon
by StormDragon666
Summary: Humble village girl Hinata talks a walk with a friend which leads to her capture by a local clan of demons. She comes to decide it's not nearly as bad as it sounds, and the one who keeps pestering her is only about half as bad as he acts. KibaxHina, most likely of my stories to become a deadfic.
1. Another Adventure

**(EDIT October 17th, 2012: I would like to inform the reader that I began this story at age thirteen, which for me was an age of friendlessness and a depressed mother. I am now nineteen, doing far better in life, and as of today, feeling a quick and sudden burst of inspiration to edit and polish this old story of mine. I always loved the idea of "possessive demon" love interest, and this story as a whole has a soft spot in my heart, well, like all my others. This note is mainly to tell you that what you about to read, that is, the first chapter for now, has been edited to fit my nineteen-year-old writing skills. I'll also edit my author's notes, keeping the content intact but making myself sound like less of a stupid tween in them. I hope you enjoy your read.)**

Okay…how did THIS happen? I watched two Naruto filler episodes in the original Japanese (for the most part until now, I've only seen the dub on Cartoon Network) and in this filler, Naruto, Hinata and Kiba went "treasure hunting" together as a mission from Tsunade. She told them that if they failed they'd be sent back to the academy to re-do all of their shinobi training. Lol, fillers and ur stupid unrealisticness. Anyhow, I became really fond of Kiba as the episode went on, to the point that I wanted to write a fic about him, and the local sweetheart who would be his best romantic interest, Hinata, 'cause I'm a shipper at heart and I do apologize.

**(OTHER EDIT, October 2012: there was a portion of the author's note here that I used to reference another story I used to have, and my very first fanfiction. It was about Sasuke-the-bird-winged vampire pursuing Sakura, his love interest, and how Sakura had befriended some wingless dragons called Rekka, which of course were the hated enemies of all vampires. A lot of it was an excuse for me to write about Sakura having fun adventures with the creatures while her love interest watches her from afar, thinking how cute her antics are and how he cares for her and IS fruitlessly wishing (~with sexual undertones~) that she was with him instead. Just call me Miss Wish Fulfillment. ANYWAY that story has been gone since late 2009 or so, due to my realization that it actually embarrassed me, so I removed the reference.)**

God help me…starting out is always hard…

Oh, I also want to note that this AU is quite low-tech and…fantasy-village-y. There are no cars, computers, towns are quite far apart and unconnected, etc., though I allowed the existence of cameras because I felt like it so there HMPH.

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April 4th, 7:46

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The sunlight was especially bright this morning. Hinata woke up smiling to it.

Per her usual Friday tradition, Sakura had spent the night. It was one of her favorite traditions, second only to the annual Festival of the Birds in spring. Her father would sometimes catch her eye on those evenings and make her aware of his frown and unfriendly gaze. But rarely did he actually bar Sakura from coming. She was a good influence, he said. A good friend for his girl.

He would say such things though his girl was no young girl, open to bad influences. Hinata was perfectly closed and protected from all bad things, it seemed. She turned her head, refused, or kept walking. She had been as a child, and she was now at age nineteen.

Sakura had just caught up to her age and become nineteen a few weeks back. But from the way Sakura shot up in bed suddenly, one would think she was a child awaking to her ninth birthday.

"You...ah, Hinata, I had planned to shake you awake this morning!" Sakura snapped her fingers and pretended to be irritated. Hinata smiled a little bit as her friend stood up and stretched with her big movements and still with her own smile. Sakura was so expressive and bright, and she loved this about her. "So, I woke up last night for a bit and got to thinking about the flower patch Ino is growing, the new one with her gya-aahha! Ghh...Hinata!"

Hinata didn't stop. She cracked each and every finger on her hands, and then the wrists, while Sakura laughed. Each one was a loud and resounding _crkkk _that smothered Sakura's noises and made her giggle. It was arguably her one "loud" quality. While Sakura moved to find her clothes for this day, Hinata grasped one of her thumbs and swiveled it around. _Crkk cr crr crrrr cr. Kkr. Krrr.  
_

"Have you got any more? Maybe?" Sakura asked, holding up one hand.

"Well, perhaps...just one." Hinata saved the final index finger knuckle for last. Sakura laughed out loud.

Presently, a pair of cats chose that moment in the morning to nudge open the door and pad on into the center of the room. They trotted gaily up until they each reached a lap and ducked inside to sit and be petted. Hinata felt the tiny chin touched her leg and rubbed it, and his back. This cat was her very first, a gift to her shortly after she became ten years old. He was a short-haired male of creamy gold with lovely green eyes. At the time of his purchase from a traveling vendor, Hinata had not been the most creative child in regards to names. She named him Padfoot, because he pads on his foot, and this was the justification she would fearfully hold up to anyone who quirked their eyebrow at her cat's name.

The one in Sakura's lap was a female, a year younger than her companion. She was dainty and pure silverish grey throughout, but for large, night-dark blue eyes. Perhaps the passing year had done some good for Hinata's creativity. She had been so inspired as to name this cat Moonbeam. Moonbeam had the loudest purr of the two, and she was showing this now as Sakura stroked her spine. Padfoot rumbled and closed his eyes lazily.

"Good morning to you, too.

"_Mrrow." _Moonbeam informed her.

Hinata arched her back once more to crack it as she did her knuckles, and laughed when Padfoot whisked his head around at the noise. Sakura began to talk more about Ino's flower patch and the potentially poisonous thing she was growing in it. Her friend listened and kept one hand on her cat. The first few minutes of the morning were peaceful.

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April 4th, 8:07

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Neji was gone in the morning as usual, and the kitchen was empty. Her father and mother would surely have eaten by now, and perhaps Uncle Hizashi, too. Hanabi was anyone's guess; she may have been up and running to Konohamaru's cottage already to play. Despite the total emptiness, the two girls made themselves pleasantly at home and searched the food boxes for appropriate morning meals. Sakura plucked two apples from the reed basket of them and washed them in the basin, while cooing at Moonbeam and poking her with her toe.

It took Hinata longer to choose, and while she chose her hand brushed a tied-up packet of chicken. Moonbeam heard this and dashed over to her owner's feet to wait for this treat which surely had to be arriving in her mouth soon. She was no stranger to desperately pawing her owner's socks and begging, either. Off to the left came a ghostly murmur, "Give her some, Hinataaa" and so she did. Moonbeam absorbed the scrap and her fellow feline stared at her in a manner suspiciously similar to an elderly man frowning upon wild adolescents.

"And you, Padfoot? Would you like some?" But Padfoot ignored the offer and took to staring at a blank wall instead.

Sakura raised her arm, pointing to another wall. "What?" Hinata asked, stroking Moonbeam's back. She was more or less pointing at the basket of apples. "If you want another, you can have one. Or...well, what are you saying?"

While continuing to chew her mouthful of apple she pointed twice more at the wall. It wasn't the basket she was pointing to, Hinata understood, but the paper calendar nailed just above it. The dark-haired girl blinked confusedly. She scanned the month of April. Her father had written the name of a visitor from another village on the square for the eleventh, and Neji had written Tenten's name on the last day of the month. And...there, on the fourth, Hinata herself had drawn a flower and a crescent moon, her poorly hidden code symbols for Sakura and herself since very early schoolhouse days.

And below that, an excited remark as though in a strapping action tale: "Adventure in the mountains today!"

Yes, an adventure. It had slipped her mind this morning in the warm and pleasant mire of petting her cats and sluggish, sleepy movement. The word _adventure _was also a code word for them. It did not mean something so exciting as a real adventure, but merely a trip into the woods to explore nature. Walking under low trees, climbing rocks and looking down great hillsides at moving flocks of birds. And though their last had been close to disastrous, beginning with the exploration of a red, rocky valley with endless piles of churned-up dirt, and nearly ending in Sakura falling off a small cliff, Hinata's desire to go on "adventures" with Sakura remained strong.

"Oh, yes, I had forgotten that till just. Yes, of course we'll still go...all I need to add to my pack is a bit more food." Her pinkette friend gave a sagely nod to this, (and a sagely, "mm-hmmmm") and chewed more of her apple.

"Can you also bring the ocean cloth that you sewed? It's so soft and a lovely surface to eat lunch on. And you forgot it last time."

Not this again. "Sakura, you forgot it last time..."

"What? I don't _forget _things, Hinata. When was the last time I've forgotten anything?" That actually was a difficult question, so her friend's response was slow. Too slow. "Right. One more thing I didn't forget is to add my own food to our supply. Did _you _remember that I was bringing those lovely chocolates this time?"

"Yes, I did. I-I still want the white one, please."

"Oh, Hinata, you can have five white ones. Hold on, I left my pack upstairs."

"You said you don't forge-" Gone. Hinata sighed and sat on one of the kitchen benches, and waited. The morning sun still felt warm and sweet. She enjoyed it quietly.

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April 4th, 5:11

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"Hinata, don't...don't _move_! There's a deer. Just behind you."

She didn't move. Not an inch, not a toe.

Hinata gasped and stopped where she was. The effort to stay still was stressful. Nearly painful. They'd been gone the entire day and the walking, movement, had numbed her muscles and made her exhausted, even when Sakura had taken to carrying her pack for her. She was no natural runner as Sakura was. She was tired, and wished suddenly there was no deer behind her making her have to do this.

Sakura put up her hands so slowly it felt a good half hour had passed before the fingers passed above her head. All around them, the sunset was turning green trees and vegetation to twilight-orange, and growing the shadows. _'Where is the deer's shadow?' _Hinata wondered. _'How far is it? I don't hear it steps, or its breath…or…_'

Her friend's voice penetrated the soft dark. "Breathe…slow. I'll get your camera. I'll try to take a picture." Hinata accepted her lot of having to stay in this position for even longer while Sakura made the dexterous maneuvers of quietly detaching the camera from her sack. But by luck or some other force, her movements were quicker this time, and the camera appeared in her hands soon enough.

The deer's nose was snuffling Hinata's hair. She bit her tongue but still shrieked within her mouth.

"Quiet quiet quiet quiettt!"

"Mmhp…!"

Sakura snapped the photo with a flash for the gathering dark, and the deer made a sudden grunt and stomped its hooves. Hinata's hands now shook, even as the deer dashed away, sprinting through the trees and hopping carelessly over the brook the two had crossed before sighting it. "Oh, it's perfect! Hinata, I got a great picture of that buck right behind you." She jogged to cut the distance between them while her friend sat on a heavy log nearby. "Well, the only minor problem is that you looked a little lopsided. I mean, your left arm was kinda…erf."

"M-My arm was what?"

"Kinda erf."

"Er…allright."

Sakura placed the camera back into the pocket of her backsack, then took a deep breath. "I think we did a good job today. Talon Tree, Hawk's Point, The Slip Rock and Tress-nuts. We got a lot of things named, and I mapped out most of it."

Taking out the piece of scroll-folded paper and a drawing pencil, the pink-haired girl added, "We didn't finish our drawing of the Tress-nuts, though. Would you shade it sometime later?" Hinata promised she would, and then sat up, examining their surroundings more.

"Did you map out anything around her? I mean, before we crossed the creek?"

"No." Sakura said. She set Hinata's bag down and the camera jangled a bit on its clip. "Before the crossing, I was just enjoying the scenery a lot. I haven't mapped anything in close to an hour, I think."

"An hour…" Mapping needed to occur more than once an hour. And a thin line of irritation slipped across Hinata's mind then, as mapping only meant sketching a few lines on a piece of paper and was no tedious task unless one was messy about it. Without mapping, it would be difficult to find their way back before perfect dark. The thought made her nervous. She relayed it to Sakura. "Then how are we getting home? What will we go by? I don't know the stars well enough to use them for direction, and…and…" Her friend's expression was becoming more pensive. Hinata's heart picked up. Why would this be so complicated as to make her think about it? Didn't she know? She had to know.

Sakura turned around, and then quarter-turned. And look at her shoes, scraping the grass. "I…I should have mapped more recently. I'm sorry, Hinata, that was plain foolish of me. I'll tell you, I don't know the way back from here. But if I could find Talon Tree, or even Slip Rock, I could. It wouldn't be more than two hours if we could just find one of them."

"Talon Tree is the furthest landmark, Sakura. The first…" Such was the closest Hinata could come to a biting comment. To an insult. There was no way they could find Talon Tree, a landmark within sight of Konoha, from wherever in the woods they were.

"We'll get home, Hinata. It's all right. We won't be spending the night in the woods with the birds and the bugs. And the invasive deer."

Despite her fears, a smile appeared on the dark-haired girl's face like an earthquake. "Right. Okay. Well…the first thing to do would be to head the way we came. We must find something familiar that way."

"Exactly!" Sakura grabbed her friend's hand, and off they were. A lovely adventure it had been today.

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April 4th, 7:14 PM

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The sun was down. Nearly.

Weak, thin stretches of violet and furious red peeked up into the skies, providing the faintest of light. Within half an hour easily, they would be gone and it would be perfect dark. This was the point at which her family would worry. And if not by midnight, her father would send search parties. He would never stop frowning at her. He would not let her leave the house. He would strike her. Hinata could not see where she was putting her feet.

The only consolation, Sakura had insisted, was that they were at least still in the woods and had not wandered into an entirely different environment. When the trees turned to a tundra or desert, then Sakura said she would worry. Hinata worried now. The trees were tall and reaching, the shadows endless. The sweet wonder of nature…was asleep. What was awake here now? "We're lost."

"No."

"It's dark, Sakura, I don't want to be here."

"I know. I'm sorry."

"It's not the bugs or the invasive deer I'm scared of. We haven't been in the woods at night for months. A year, perhaps. I'd forgotten what it's like."

Sakura's voice was quieter, and higher. "I know. We shouldn't talk about being scared, though, okay? Not to…pretend we aren't…but talking about it isn't going to help, I'm pretty sure of that. Let's talk about something else."

"The phoenix, then. I-I was, um, really fond of the phoenix. I think that's the picture I love the best out of all the ones today." Sakura laughed at the mention of the ridiculous red bird, and Hinata frantically searched for more to say on it. Anything to keep from thinking, from talking about how their families must be scared by now.

They might be scared their daughters were lost in the woods, or scared they were stolen. There _were _thieves in the woods sometimes: thieving, predatory animals. Thieving men.

"By my knowledge, I would mark it male for its…courtship dance." She laughed, and the pinkette did as well. "Konohamaru would have fallen over laughing. I think even Neji would have laughed." She crawled carefully over a fallen tree, ignored a wolf's howl. _If it's alone it's no threat if it has companions we must run but if its alone and yes it's alone we'll be fine just fine, fine, oh no…' _

"I bet all the females were laughing, too. You know, it would just be so crazy if human did such things for a woman's attention. Imagine. Sasuke—Or Neji, Neji!—flailing their arms and screaming, hanging upside down, just _praying _it would all make you then find him attractive."

"Ssstop! Sakura!" Her laughter poured gaily out of her, but was drained in a moment when Sakura stopped, and Hinata was forced to do so, too.

The pinkette's happy manner was gone as quickly as it had appeared. Sakura faced her, the fine green of her eyes remained bright and visible. "I don't want to talk about fear, Hinata, but you know, I do think we need to talk about our current location. Nothing is familiar, and it's not because of the dark masking things or anything like that. I know I haven't seen these places before. No creek, no tree and no rock looks the same as anything we saw today. We've made a wrong turn somehow. We may have gone even further out from Konoa. I don't know."

Hinata sighed at the very words she had been thinking, and let them sink. Out of sight. "Yes. I know. We'll, we'll just—"

"I have no _idea _where we are, Hinata…"

They paused, and Sakura stepped closer to her friend, invading all imagined boundaries of her personal space and grasping one of her arms tight. "I don't know. I don't know. I haven't been this lost in my life. My parents will be so terrified. And Sasuke, too. And Neji will…might even…be out looking for us now. But he won't find us!" The weight of Sakura's head on her shoulder was heavy. Wet with new tears. Hinata embraced her tight, and blessed the moon for shining through the clouds upon their heads at that moment.

Her own heartbeat was quick and distressed, and painful. "It's all right, Sakura. L-look. Listen to me. I have an idea, okay? …Okay?" The head lifted from her shoulder, and the wet eyes latched weakly onto her own, begging without words for the solution. Hinata gave it with a bright smile. A smile only for Sakura. "I'll climb a tree. I'm a rather good climber when I try, right? I'll find a good, strong tree, with thick branches. I-I'll climb up and look at what I see from up high. I might not see a town. I might see a familiar landmark, though. Who knows?"

"Town—" Sakura muttered, and sniffed. She squeezed Hinata's hand, and Hinata let her. "Y…okay. Let's find a tree." But Hinata already had, luckily, seen one just to her left, not a stone's throw away, and led her friend to it. She released their joined hands.

"I'll go up. You stay and wait, o-okay? I'll be back in a moment." The climb was slower than she wanted, or her strength was less than she hoped. But she continued on the way, grabbing well-placed branches—of which, at least, there were many—until the branches began to thin and their leaves lessen. One more branch up, or two more, and she would see over the treetops. Yes, here, with moonlight all over her, she could even stand while holding the thin end of the trunk. than most girls and Sakura was a little taller than most girls. She stood on her tip-toes, blue tunic brushing her skin with a push from the wind. Her body remained absolutely still. And she stared.

There was no civilization. No familiar trees. No Slip Rock. Only hills and woods. Trees covering a swatch of flat land, trees covering a raised piece of land that seemed nearly the size of Konoha itself. The horizon was far, and dark. The tiniest traces of sunset light were nearly dead. It was all green, all around…all dark. And seemingly monotonous but for an area to her right where the tree had grown wrong, creating a large bump of leaves and branches, growing…growing…not growing. No. It was not a lump on the tree. It was a person.

He was looking at her.

Her mind was lashed backward to so many novels she had read in her life, so many usages of a phrase that informed the reader something like _his blood ran cold _and this day, she suddenly understood the words. Her blood, her entire body ran cold and filled up with numbing fear. This man, this stranger had appeared in a realm seemingly of nothing, where she could hardly hide herself, to stare. His stare was chilling. It wrought goosebumps on her flesh and her breath came short and did not come at all and the man's red-painted face was turned so perfectly at her and he was silent, silent, _looking at her. _

There would be no more warnings. He was going to come for her, of this she was sure. And with the unbeatable power of fear, she dropped from her branch and skidded down to the next two, slipped easily off them, striking her legs and arms and head at every other turn. Sakura gasped and cried out from the ground, and stars spun in her own aching head, but none of this mattered. Even Sakura's kindly words were nothing. "Hinata, oh lord, what's happened? What's up there?"

Hinata accepted her hand to be assisted in standing up, and as she rose breathed out, "We must run. Right now." Sakura obeyed. Like deer from hungering wolves, they ran.

Still, Sakura attempted to draw the truth from her. "What did you see? What's behind us?" Hinata shook her head wildly, and used her energy instead to leap over a huge rock, half-buried in the ground. "Hinata! Why are we running?"

"I'm sorry!" she cried. "I saw a man in the trees. He was staring at me, Sakura, it gave me goosebumps like nothing I've ever felt in my life. I think, I feel so, so very sure, he will come after us now that he saw me. I'm sorry I made this happen, Sakura, I swear to all gods!"

"Not your fault! Don't say that!"

Behind them was a noise from an animal's mouth. The growl of a wolf. Close.

"No!"

"_Faster!" _

And faster they ran. The mortified frown grew and grew on Hinata's face, and she was all but petrified to see Sakura suddenly smiling. "Hey—let's, let's show 'em how fast we can go!" Hinata pretended, or perhaps attempted, to share her enthusiasm. The truth was that the weight of her breasts was suddenly making itself known and becoming harder to ignore, and strained her will even more (and what if the thing pulled her back by her hair, like Hanabi did sometimes? What if—) But she kept up, pounding stride after stride. Leaping, dodging, always watching the other when a tree separated them. Running and running. Hinata cried out some consolation in a tired, tattered voice: at least they were together. Sakura frantically nodded at her, her hair whisking over her face.

The howl came again. And again. It was about the same distance behind, and now tears were forcefully pricking her eyes.

"I don't want us to die this way—"

"We won't! We won't!"

"_Ooooo-oooOOOOOO—"_

The look she spied on Sakura's was of otherworldly fear. Perhaps they really would die. Their families would never know.

From the trees on their right, a long shape burst out of the darkness between tree trunks and brought Sakura down. Hinata screamed and turned, her hands rolling into frantic fists. But even as Sakura rolled beneath the vicious thing, she was screaming herself, "Go, go, go, get _home, GO!"_

It was Sakura's command. She always would listen. But now—now even Sakura screamed at her to leave, and she screamed again before turning back and running again, leaving Sakura behind. She swore to come back. She swore it in her loudest voice. The reverberations struck the trees and cracked her very soul. There was no responding cry. And it was that that made the young woman stop again, and wait.

By the blessing of the gods, she had stopped in a large space between trees, a flat clearing. There was room here, and good visibility. The moon would not allow her attacker to hide her. For now, she stood, and shook. The stars above might have had a map pointing south, pointing home, Hinata remembered, and she hated herself for not learning them. Sakura was dead. Sakura—

Sakura must have shared this feeling in the moment she was tackled, this feeling of true danger, of being so exposed, so horrid, literally making her skin crawl and her limbs jerk. Knowing this, she straightened them. Stood still. She hated. "I'll…I'll kill you for killing her. I…I-will…_will_—"

The dark listened to her, and the wolf did not come for a long time. Hinata fought for endless moments the idea that it had stayed behind to consume Sakura's flesh, and only hunger for a young human's meat kept it from attacking her, and Sakura lay dead or dying and sobbing with a monster pulling her insides out and ripping her clothes away. Hinata continued to fight tears.

An attack came in between blinks. It was just like Sakura's. Sudden, from between tree trunks, and so very fast. Hinata screamed out loud and lashed her bag at the thing as it came, but she only glanced off its side and felt nearly no impact. The thing was gone, having run right past her in only the space of a breath, and dived back in to the opposite side of the clearing, into the brush. It was hardly enough time for Hinata to gasp.

It had even managed to thwart the neatness of her hair, and shoved the strands she kept in front of her ears into her face. She swept them back angrily and said to nothing, "Whatever y-you are, I will fight you. For Sakura."

Far away, to the right, above her head, and all around, there came the sound of an animal purring. The wolf was purring. Hinata's skin chilled again. She shrieked when the blur came again, from nearly behind her. By the time she faced it, it was too late to block. She could see the attacker in that moment before he hit her. it was a _boy _with markings on his face, and sharp teeth.

His tackle landed them both harshly on the ground, and Hinata about barked with the sudden pain of hardened earth on her head. The boy above he was smiling. His teeth were…so sharp. Hinata's racing heart calmed as she stared at the boy, and quickened again at a proper site of his teeth

"Heyy…" He purred, stroking the side of her face. "What's this?"

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Wow. Almost 10 pages in about 2 hours. I call productive on this one. Well, now we can say that I love KibaxHina and will ship that ship for a long time. I hope you liked it. More to come when time is there.

Ta…Storm


	2. Kiba and Kurenai

**(EDIT, October 22****nd****, 2012: I have begun the on-and-off process of editing this story, which still carries embarrassing writing traits of mine I had when I was thirteen, when I first published it. So I am polishing up the writing, and, well, fixing Hinata's thoughts. They sound like Sakura sometimes, I think, too passionate or over-analytic. Not enough soft contemplation or...soft much of anything, and a challenge in expressing strong emotions. Will fix that, and any other messes I see. ****I hope you enjoy your read.)**

So I got one review, but it happened practically within the hour of this story's existence, meaning it got someone's attention and it got their attention quick. I'm glad! After all, who needs a ton of reviews on their story, really? Not me! Totally not me.

I guess that's it.

Second.

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April 4th, 8:00 PM

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She was in tears. Nearly. She held them back for Sakura. She kept from crying as this predator touched her face with his rough fingers.

She knew what was coming, too. Surely.

The boy looked very handsome close up. Even his tattoos. Ordinarily, Hinata frowned upon them. Even if the bearer had obtained the tattoo for a deep reason, for a memory, she recoiled at the idea of images burned onto you for all your life. It was like a physical curse. This boy's curse was shaped like a wolf's fang. Two bloodred fangs on his cheeks. Perhaps…they weren't tattoos at all, but markings he'd painted with blood. Oh, lord. Lord, he wouldn't rape her. He would eat her. Inside she shrieked.

'_Please. Please. Let someone come. I don't care if it's a stranger or a dragon or…or anything. Please. PLEASE HELP!' _

He was touching her hair now. Hinata came back into herself and was able to really absorb what she was looking at again. The boy had brown hair. His eyes had tiny pupils like a snake—_'no no no oh God NO!_—and his hands on her hair were very gentle. So deceptive. Father had always said men would be deceptive if they…if…they…_no—_

She thrashed her hand that his own had pinned to the ground, and lashed the other one at his neck. "Get off!"

Now the stranger looked surprised. But happy. He was laughing. Laughing! "No, I'm fine where I am. Are you?"

"_No_!"

The eyes of the horrid boy locked on to her own. Held them there. Hinata stayed still and felt…too odd a calm. It must have been the calm before the storm. Something terrible would happen to her just as something terrible had happened to Sakura. The gaze turned from soul-shaking to…curious. Playful.

His head moved closer until their noses almost touched, and only fear kept her from shrieking aloud in surprise. And it came to Hinata's attention that her face and ears must be red as roses by now, and her body was shaking more than she'd been aware of. A tiny white fang, a _fang,_ appeared out of the corner of the boy's mouth. It looked—"You're cute."

Fire, her ears were on fire.

THAT was too much, and broke through her haze. Uncontrollably, she thrashed under him, gasping, too frightened to give out real words or to beg. And yes, she successfully loosened his arm and both of hers were then free. But just that moment, the boy got up off of her, and she took the opportunity to all but leap backward. Her back hit a tree with a rough thumping noise, and there she stayed, and barely breathed. When air would hardly come, the rage for Sakura's undeserved fate filled her again. Real, true rage, the likes of which she hadn't felt since she was a toddler, and still had the capacity for rage.

This day, it was real. "My friend, Sakura—"

A sound like a dog growling came out through his closed teeth. Her own words stopped, and she sat silent and awed as people are made silent and awed by the sight of instruments of torture. Next, he said a true word: "Hush." A quick, harsh command, it was, no sweet, calming lullaby. Like Mother would do. Mother hadn't lived to see her grow up, but it didn't matter because she never would finish that process anyway.

_Fast as wind the boy lunged in her direction dropped to his knees over her own legs. As she made her first thrash away from him, he slapped one palm on the back of her neck_. It hurt, stung, and she cried out at the pain it brought, and then the numbness. Hinata tried to fight the oncoming dark in the edges of her eyes, worrying, heart pounding—

Surrounded by those rings of dark she saw, the boy was leaning down to her, and smiling so big. What a handsome smile. It did something strange to her. Something so strange, so powerful, the rings closed and she saw black, and then saw nothing.

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April 5th, 10:46AM

666

It took a lot of effort to lift herself out of the comforting, warm black and return to unknown light again. The final try, she did at last open her eyes and find no trees around her at all. Only bedposts. Only the Uchihas were rich enough to own beds with bedposts.

Had the rescued her—was she home now oh perhaps perhaps!—what if they found Sakura's _body—_But that thought closed off instantly. A wall came down over it and it was slammed mercilessly against the wall till it died and faded away. She couldn't handle such a thought right now, not at all.

Beyond the bedposts, beyond the soft, soft bed, she could see only the faintest of light from a curtained window on her right side. The curtain cloth was an earthy shade of brown, it seemed, and looked very fancy. The owner of this house was a rich man or a talented sewer of cloth. And outside that window, what was there? Was it night? Were there clouds or sun out right now?

A soft patter of rain outside pulled her thoughts back onto the proper track. It was raining a bit outside, she could hear it. It was small enough a sound that she felt confident she'd slept through a rainstorm, and was hearing its dying spats. It was a quiet…dying sound. And as she listened to this rain, Hinata became more and more convinced that she was not so lucky as to be lying safe in a bed in the Uchiha household. But she was not dead, and for this she was very thankful. There would be no terrible funeral her father would have to hold. Nothing for Neji to be carry guiltily in his old-soul heart for the rest of his life. Padfoot and Moonbeam would…oh…

The light that reached through the thick curtain was unpleasantly weak. The curtain was just thin enough to allow light to see the floor near the right side of the bed, and the space of wall directly below the window. All else was unlit and hidden. Some vague outlines existed, though, and her vision was sharp enough to discern some of them. There were typical bedroom things: a nightstand, a bookshelf—mostly funny-shaped objects she couldn't see, hardly any books—and a rug. So lavish. It _could _be an Uchiha room. She could hope.

The cloth under her, upon further feeling-inspection, she understood was of the same good quality her own family owned. No such thread-shedding quilt that Tenten claimed as a bedding blanket. Where was Tenten right now?

Hinata pulled quickly away from this thought by practicing her usual morning routine, the cracking of her knuckles and joints. The arms were first. She arched it slightly and stretched the arms far up. C-C-CRRK. Next, she moved both her legs up in turn, kicking them inward to crack the kneecaps briefly. CRK, and then CRK. Third, Hinata twisted on her right ankle until it was seemed to stand at an awkward bend. It cracked loud, hard, and with vibration. _KKKRKK_. She did the same with her left ankle. Lastly, she moved up her fists, and pressed down on her knuckles.

_Krr-rr-rrrk-krr-kk._ One big crack for each finger, plus the thumb.

She heard her own voice laughing a little. A little more..

"How'd you do that?" Like _blood ran cold, _she had also seen in many of her favorite novels a character who mistook someone else's voice for their own due to sheer exhaustion. The characters were attacked more often than not, she thought, as she whipped around with this realization, and stared wide-eyed into the dark. The voice had been male, she thought, but was not sure. What was there to be sure of in a room that could pose as one from her hometown, but was not?

The new silence that appeared as her answer was chilling. She spoke into it and tried to fill it. "W-what? Who's that?"

_Footsteps. _Coming closer. It was only one person, she was sure, but the sound was so strange. There was no telling what direction they came from. It was all around. Hinata sunk back onto the bed, more or less cross-legged, and waited for the person to find her. She breathed deep, and sought peace, as Neji had taught her for years..

"You heard me. How'd you do that?" It was a man after all. He was standing just by the edge of the bed. He had to be. He was so close he should have been able to touch her from where he stood in his shadowed spot. And Hinata _felt _him staring at her. Whether it was the attacking boy from the woods, she could not tell, yet common sense was pointing her his way. Her common sense did not know, however, how to deal with a person who needed directions on cracking their knuckles.

"I-I just pressed…" She responded slowly, not moving and not opening her eyes. There was a sudden pressure on the bed as though he might have bumped into it.

A moment later she heard him cracking his knuckles, too, the first one followed by a yelp that made her flinch and nearly puncture her own palms. Not a moment after this, he laughed, and she heard something that sounding like the boy stomping his foot. "Haaha..._owww, _how do you—ghhh—gyaohh! Haaahaha!" Hinata stayed still on the bed, her blood running cold again. The boy sounded insane. Then he was breathing on her face and her blood did not run at all.

The tips of her ears felt faintly warm. Something pointy touched the midsection of her back suddenly, but even that couldn't draw a reaction from her. She was too terrified, again. This man, touching her with something sharp. Touching her at all. Her first close encounter of _any _kind with a man, and it was with the man's knife. How could she possibly deserve this, to die this way?

"You're scared, aren't you?"

'_You soulless thing…' _"Yes."

"…Yes."

"That's fine," He said nonchalantly, but still Hinata felt that pointy thing tracing her back and it was not fine. It made her shiver, and she couldn't control it. Her sense of feeling was return and she felt that claw-like thing as though she wore no tunic at all, but that it instead slid aimlessly over her bare back. Her eyes darted one way and the next into the perfect dark, wondering: _'What do I do? What does he want? What do I do now? Why does it feel_—"

Quietly, with a bursting light, a door far to the left opened. The sudden sunlight blinded the girl and prompted her to flinch to the side, away from the reach of the sharp object. She looked beyond the predator-boy, and saw a figure illuminated by the sunlight. Across the room, past a run pale as fawn fur and beyond the bookshelf full of—_skulls, _they were animal _skulls_—stood a woman. Tall and imposing, wearing an outlandish striped outfit bearing resemblance to an organized mat of bandages round her torso. Her hair was deeper grey than wolf fur and the eyes beneath redder than blood. Hinata absorbed these dark details but was not afraid of them. She stared more, and felt some hope fluttering within her. The hope grew when she saw the boy staring at this new woman, too, in outright panic.

It was alarming to see that when she had thought the boy had bumped into the bed, he had actually sat down next to her, and she didn't even notice, but Hinata could not care about this. He was scared now, too. He wasn't touching her anymore and it looked like he would not again. The predator-boy had clearly been caught in an act he was not meant to be doing.

So stark was his fear at being caught that the predator stood up off the bed again, raising his hands slightly so the woman could see them. What exactly could that mean, Hinata wondered? He kept his eyes carefully on the long-haired woman, and even bowed his head slightly to her. Now Hinata outright stared at him.

"I have told you once and again," the woman boomed. Hinata and the boy flinched together. She frowned powerfully, and seemed to bare her teeth. "Not now! Keep _away, _Kiba!"

Predator-boy bowed his head lower and made a distressed noise. His fingers curled slightly, drawing Hinata's attention to the claws on the end of each finger. The predator-boy had claws like a beast. He really was a predator. Eyes faithfully on the woman, he raised his head slightly. And growled.

"I-I…I can't. You know that and you can't make me." Kiba's—no, no she would not call him by his beastly name—the predator gained confidence in an instant.

The woman slammed her hand against the doorframe and cracked it. "Bull_shit _I can't make you! Leaver her be and go downstairs right this moment before I tear your skin to ribbons!"

The shrieks did little but make Kiba grin, but his pose became subdued again, and he nodded. He started to walk towards the door, but made sure to turn his torso half-around and grin again, right at Hinata herself. The loud woman came into the room to allow him passage back out the door. The boy's footsteps tapped on stone-like floors for a long minute, creating the only sound in a silent hall. They had just faded when the woman sighed loudly, and paraded in through the door right up to the bed.

She deflected Hinata's jerking limbs and attempts to move away with soft words. "Stop that, dear. I mean you no harm. I know that boy scared the living light out of you, but you don't need to worry, all right? He needs a good threat to do anything. And his friend Shino will keep him busy somewhere else for now." Hinata stayed still on the bed, calmed, but not enough to speak. The woman spoke more for her instead. "Ah! What am I thinking? You don't even know my name!" She extended her hand slightly, but it came out slow, like the woman had only recently learned to shake hands herself.

"My name is Kurenai. I live here. That boy is Kiba, a true nuisance, but I care for him nonetheless." Hinata happily obeyed the indubitable laws of politeness and shook this woman's hand despite her connection to her kidnapper. "So…he picked you up on his way home, Kakashi tells me."

…'Picked her up?' "…What?"

"Well, how did you get here?"

"I-I…don't know where here is…I don't know how I was brought here, really…"

"Here' is our home, sweet. It's a large and lovely mansion our elders built a good two centuries back."

"Oh…oh." Hinata gulped, and tried to arrange her thoughts in the proper order such that Kurenai would recognize she had been taken away from a pleasant mountainside stroll by Kiba's attacking and stealing her. Perhaps because the matter was so, so urgent, she had little trouble speaking. "I was…um, I was with my friend in the woods. We went south from Konoha to spend the day walking and exploring. We've done that since, since seven or so years ago."

With one smooth blink, hiding and exposing the bloody iris, Kurenai nodded, and Hinata was instantly embarrassed. What likelihood was there this stranger wanted to hear about her "adventures"? And how would she react when Hinata expressed her fear that Kiba would rape or kill her? As he had…killed her friend? It would be a horrible moment. She would want to hold her breath and lose consciousness, truly, to hide from…from…well…she couldn't hide. And she had to get home.

"Today—"

"Yesterday." Kurenai said.

Silently, Hinata met Kurenai's gaze, befuddled and suddenly frightened again. But nothing came of that moment. Kurenai only waited more. "Yesterday…we-we…went on another such walk. A very long one. It wasn't till nearly sunset we realized we didn't know where we were anymore. And after the sun set, we were no better, and lost hope of getting home. Sakura is, is usually very brave and strong. But she cried and to make her feel better, I said I would climb a tall tree and look for a landmark, or a town."

With another, deeper nod, and a hum in her closed mouth, Kurenai said, "And you saw nothing, I'm sure." Hinata stayed quiet. "Well, you're a lot farther from a town that you guessed. Go on."

"…And I saw nothing, you're right. Nothing but trees and hills, and not far from me there was one tree that…that carried a p-person…it…Kiba, was in that tree, standing at the top. He stared at me and I was so, so scared. Like I'd never been scared before. I felt sure that he wanted to hurt me. So I got back to the bottom as fast as I could, and told Sakura to r-run, and we ran, and ran and…and he _got _her…he killed her!"

Tears and her own heart blocked whatever Kurenai said in sudden response. Hinata clenched her fists tight and said it again. "He killed her, I said! He knocked her down and she begged me to keep running and get home. I couldn't stand it. I couldn't run away while she died for me. I turned around and waited for him. I wanted to fight him and hurt him for what he's done!"

"Oh…"

"It didn't work. He knocked me down like he knocked her down. He touched my face and my hair and I didn't know what to do at all. But he hit me on the neck and I fell and he…'picked me up.' And brought me…here…and just stood in the room with me, like, like he would want—"

The woman's arms went around her shoulders instantly, pulling her head under her pale chin. Hinata let her, and did not care. She couldn't help but listen to the words in her ear: "That's wrong, that's wrong, sweet. Kiba is not that kind of creature, I swear to you. He would never hurt and frighten you so. Never."

Through tears, Hinata managed: "_Lying_."

"I am not." Hinata's sobs stopped when she felt objects poking at her shoulder. She looked, and saw pointed ends on Kurenai's fingers. She also had nails that had turned to claws. "I know it seems so terrible to you. But it's not. I promise. And I can prove it to you. Kiba never meant to hurt you, and you _are _safe right now…" She said a little more, but Hinata was waiting for the proof. And then: "We took Sakura home. She is back in your village now, safe as she ever was."

She was? She was! Thank the god! Despite herself, Hinata began smiling, and her tears faded into a bubble of laughter. "Prove that," she said, in a strange giggle.

"Certainly. The proof is on this shelf, here. Kiba wanted to show it to you." Kurenai stood up and approached the bookshelf full of animal bones. Hinata saw it was actually rather evenly divided between skulls, shiny rocks and carved figures, which her fear had not allowed her to see before. Still, she held her breath and nearly willed Kurenai to not approach that collection of ugliness. But as usual, she was paid little mind, and waited. Kurenai grasped a piece of paper from one of the upper shelves, held secure under the feet of a panther figurine. "Here, read this. You'll feel much better."

When the paper was within arm's reach, Hinata held out her hands and received it like a heavenly gift. She recognized the paper. The finely-molded stuff the Uchiha family used. Which they had given to Sakura. And the handwriting on it was a familiar, strong and vibrant print that she knew to be Sakura's.

_Hinata, I need you to know that I am perfectly all right, and I hope more than anything that you are, too. The thing that tackled me was not a wolf but a man. He is tall and wears round spectacles, and his name is "Shino." I'm actually not scared of him, Hinata, in fact I think I do trust him. He knows our village, and he even knows Mr. Hiruzen personally. He told me stories about him! And Anko, too! He told me about a farmer he knows in Suna! And so, when he says that his friends found you at the bottom of a hill, knocked out and your leg broken, I do believe him. The only part of him I dislike is that he is not letting me see you. He says I am not allowed, can you believe that? I might be attacked or killed, he says. I think it's nonsense and despite how kind and knowledgeable he is, I'm furious at him for that. But I am so glad you're all right. Please be all right, my friend. _

_Shino will guide me home tonight, and he says I must tell everyone not to search for you. You will return to us when you are ready. I even have the honor of breaking this news to your family. As though the parade of my parents and Sasuke clinging to me in joy will not be enough to drain me. I'll take on the duty, I guess; no one else can. I'm not sure what else to add. Shino keeps giving me funny looks. I think he wants to be off now. So that's probably my cue to end this. Good luck with your healing. Work hard to get better, Hinata! I will see you in a few weeks, be well!_

_SAKURA _

The smile on her face then could rival that of Anko the butcher-woman.

Softly, she set the paper to her side and covered her face with her hands to hide the smile, and the extra tears. Kurenai rubbed her shoulder, and murmured, "My, Kiba did say you had a stunning smile." Hinata did not care about that and continued to burst with gratitude for Sakura's safety. She even began to laugh, giddy as Konohamaru with taffy candies. "By the by, I never asked your name and I'm sorry for that rudeness, but I did more or less forget about it since your friend wrote your name into the letter, Hinata." Hinata still didn't care much, and kept smiling, and curling her fingers with joy.

With one more shoulder rub, Kurenai stood up, whisking her hair back over her shoulders. "Well, then. Let's be off now, Hinata."

Now Hinata cared again. "G-go somewhere? But I need to leave! My leg's not really broken. I need to go home."

"Go home?" Kurenai said, like it was a foreigner's awkward phrase. She paused. "You can't."

"Wh—why not?"

The lady chuckled a little. "Well, I suppose if you could get past Kakashi or Kiba. Or whoever's out by the gate, or…anyone who saw you leaving, not to mention if you could outrun them." She paused in her thinking again and walked a semicircle around the bed to its right side. She pulled the curtains free and let in a tall rectangle of sunlight that assaulted Hinata's sensitive eyes. Once she was adjusted, she found Kurenai was gesturing her over to look outside. She hopped off the bed and made her careful way round to the window.

Outside was still partially clouded from the fleeing rain, and everything she saw was below her. the room must have been at least one floor above the ground. Most of what was to be seen was a green, wet lawn seeming to circle the entire mansion, as Kurenai had called it, and its borders were marked by a stone wall tipped with iron spikes, and a black, ornate gate directly ahead of their window. It was a long run away from the building to the gate, and standing by it was a man whose hair and pants she was able to identify as both being grey. Beyond the wall and the gate, there was woods and hills and endless, endless trees. The building lay in a sea of trees.

The grey-haired man moved from his position and faced them both. By squinting, Hinata could see he was not half as old as his hair color made her at first think. He was only six or seven years her senior, and his face was covered by a band of cloth, a mask or a scarf. Now that he had moved, it was revealed he'd been facing another man in a large white coat, wearing black spectacles.

"The man in the mask is Kakashi. He's the most common gate guard. He watches for thieves and beasts. There are a few dozen every year who try to hop the walls and search for treasures in this old place. They never get far."

Hinata stayed quiet and remember Kiba's fangs, and his howls. He had touched her with a claw. Had those invaders also seen…claws? Were they still alive to tell that tale?

She looked up at the smiling, observing Kurenai, waving to Kakashi, and wondered. Despite those terrible thoughts, Kurenai felt like a safe presence, and a protector if she was to have any. If anyone else in the house thought she was an invader, or just didn't like her, well…well, Kurenai would help. She would have to. But that wasn't nearly her most pressing problem.

"So, do you mean, I just can't leave because he's, um, guarding that gate?" she dared to ask; she didn't know if she felt brave or foolish to voice the question. "Does he have orders to force me to stay here? There must be some way past him, or another way out but th-that gate."

"Remember that Kiba will try to keep you here, too," Kurenai remarked, and it was so offhand and casual that she felt her equivalent to rage, or perhaps actual rage, growing inside. While she simmered with this idea, Kurenai also added, "I want to say again he's not going to hurt you, dear. He won't, ever."

Something gave Hinata the idea that if she were to press that issue, the answer would confuse or anger her. She kept to the important issue. "You didn't answer my question, though. "A I going to be kept here like a prisoner? I'm not worth keeping, Kurenai. I can do housework, but that is all. I'm not very strong. Or courageous. If Kiba, well, w-well, if he wanted to kidnap someone that he could roughhouse with or chase around or something like that, he won't be satisfied with me. I'm sure."

"S-Satisfied with—" Kurenai chuckled, and even covered her mouth, ladylike, to smother her laugh.

"Kurenai…"

"It's not your fault, you don't know. Hinata," she turned halfway to face the poor girl. "We don't mean for you to be employed here. We want you to live here. That's why Kiba brought you."

Shock busted through all her rage and confusion and left Hinata nearly too weak to stand. She made an effort to push strength down into her legs so as not to fall down. "Wh—that's…that's not…"

The elder woman placed her hand on Hinata's shoulder. "It will not be a jail or anything of the sort, Hinata. This is a home like any other, with family and friends and lots of things to do. I've never heard any but the brats like Kiba say they ever get bored. Your life will be good. Fulfilled. But there will be no returning to your Konoha village. I am sorry. But you will adjust, I'd easily bet my life on it."

"Bet _your _life?" Hinata said suddenly. Her mouth twisted, roiling now with emotion but not able to settle into a frown or any set expression. She boiled inside again, and expelled calm words, laced with her rage. "_My _life isn't just a thing you can toss this way and that like a toy. It's not fair at all of you or of him to force me to stay somewhere, to kidnap me and control what I'm going to do and where I'll be till I die. You made Kiba leave his own bedroom with one shout, you saved me. I know you could help me if you really wanted. _Why _am I really staying here? Why?"

There it was, the center of all questions and events. Kurenai's stunned face, not hidden quickly enough, told her she'd struck the right nail. To her credit, it didn't look like Kurenai was now trying to hide whatever the answer was. Hinata held her breath when the response came out. "That I could flush him out of his own den isn't as meaningful as you think." She said, and Hinata thought on the word _den, _which she had at home, a wide room where guests and homeowners alike would sit on feather-sofas and relax. "Perhaps he left out of respect, perhaps fear of my wrath, perhaps both. Though I succeeded at that time, the truth is, it's he who really has the choice on what happens to you." Hinata stared, not feeling very much, and waited for more.

"I can't be your savior all the time. It's him who saw you last night and formed a bond with you. You're his now, and whatever protests I might have, he'll almost surely do with you what he wants."

Hinata stared with her mouth slightly open. Unresponsive. She made to sit on the bed before her legs gave out, but failed.

666

Poor Hinata, now you're stuck with him. Stick with Safe Point Kurenai as much as you can, girl.

Well now that I'm going through editing the story (as of October 2012) I am half embarrassed and half nostalgic-slash-happy that even at age thirteen, I had a thing for otherworldly creatures such as demons forcing a bond of eternal love on humans. See The Night Under for another example.

Well, I remember, and have discovered from re-reading this old thing, that it was not that type of relationship _exactly. _It was more like Kiba "just liked her very, very much" and took her home with him via kidnapping methods and that itself _meant _a bond of eternal luvs from a demon's point of view. Hinata would eventually accept that and love him back, and that with some added conflicts to their lovely life would make up the story. Welp. Um…now I'm making it so that an actual mating bond was formed when Kiba first saw her in the treetops, and Hinata will have to slowly grow used to it and find some explanation as to why Kiba is all over her now and she isn't feeling any such affection or love for him in return, and slowly but surely fix it. That makes it more realistic, rite. Well, it makes it more how I like it, and if you don't like that sort of fantasy-tale relationship, there is an inviting "back" button made just for you.

Ta…Storm


	3. A Fun Prison

It's incredibly early, but since I do it for Black Wings of My Secrets, I will do it here. I expect, since HinaXKiba isn't the most popular out of them all, only about 2 reviews each chapter, 3 or 4 if it's a good one. So here I will start answering reviews, because I'm like that, and It often takes up almost one whole page in Microsoft Word, which helps me move along faster, knowing I've got something done.

Reviews…

**YamiKitsuneKami: **Oh My God! You're the first reviewer ever! This whole writer's-confidence-boost thing started when you did that! When this comes to an end, hopefully a satisfyingly happy ending, you will be thanked before other reviewers. Oh, and, uh…about the room thing…read the chapter.

**BlackXHeart: **You have reviewed almost every chapter of Black Wings of My Secrets, and you've done the same here. I'd call you an awesome person, and sort of devoted to things I write. You were the first to put this on alert, and that's cool. Onto what you said: Yes! They _are _cute together! But I think it's cutest when they happen to be together and Kiba has his hood off. He looks better without it. Oh, yes. She IS over her head. Let's find out some more why's to that.

**Blue Quartz Foxy: **I hope you liked it. My mind was freakin' crazy storming up ideas for this in just a couple of hours, I think I talked to myself a little too long and my mom might have caught some of it. …and this came out. You think my ideas so far are good ones?

**Chii-Niwokauru: **You're the first person to ever put this on your faves! You, with YamiKitsuneKami, will be acknowledged at the end of this, whenever it does come. (Not soon.) I feel seriously awkward when I have Kiba with Hinata, because I've never done anything like what I made his character be. I type stuff, and my mind's like: "…_What_ are you _doing?" _It's hard to make him like that, but if a reviewer comes by and says they like his character, I guess I must be doing good for a first time!

**Shriveled.up.heart: **I couldn't tell if you made an error or what. Did you mean to say you wrote a long review and it DIDN'T post, or that you were just being sarcastic? If you wrote a long review and it didn't get accepted, all we can saw is, "Screw You, FF!" If you were being sarcastic, joke's on me.

And, just like Black Wings of My Secrets, I am going to give you news and stuff on my life. Because we all know that you want to know what's happening with me. Kiss-ups.

I'm on Spring Break right now. I had the 7th of April off school for a teacher work day, and now from the 10th to the 16th, Easter. I go back to school on the 17th. It's retarded because I have a Life Science project on birds due the Thursday I get back…so that's what, the 20th?

Third.

666

Hinata raised her arms and opened her mouth, but no sound came out. She blinked rapidly with confusion, then stomped her foot on the rug beneath her feet. She could say nothing.

Kurenai looked around as though she might find the answer in this room. "…Yes, well... Look, it sounds a little suckish at first, but I think…" She trailed off when she saw the look Hinata gave her. It was somewhere between shock and agony, her arms hung limp at her sides and her silvery eyes had some emotion in them that she couldn't recognize. In those few moments, Hinata Hyuuga resembled a zombie.

"…Why?"

"It's tradition, I said that."

"I mean, why can't I leave?"

Kurenai put her hand comfortingly on Hinata's shoulder. "He's given the word to Kakashi. He doesn't want you to leave, so he won't let you. If you try to sneak out or something, Kakashi will bring you back to Kiba and…you go from there." Hinata stared blankly at the woman with grey hair. "And you can't fix that?"

"Not much. Live with it. You still got good things going for you. Did you see how Kakashi looked at you? Friend At First Glance, I know that for sure. Come on, I know you don't want to be here." She patted Hinata's shoulder roughly. "I know all the places in this house, trap doors, secret rooms and all that. You can hang around there. Kiba respects me, but he also fearsme. He won't come near you if you're with me."

An ember of safety and hope flared in Hinata's chest. She could be _safe _from him.

"Thank you." Was all she could say. If the woman wanted it, Hinata would pay her to keep her away from Kiba. She couldn't decide whether she hated or was afraid of him. Could you do both of those things to anything? Lima beans, for sure, but a person?

"You coming?" Hinata looked up. "Maybe this will get you coming along faster. Do you know whose room this is?" Hinata's hope flare flickered with fear. "N-No."

"It's Kiba's."

"_Aaaah!"_

Faster than lightning, she was out of the room and standing outside the doorway. _'Unholy! Unholy!'_

She followed Kurenai out of the room she'd been in, and out into a long hallway lined with doors on both sides evenly. Kurenai selected a door, opened it, and they walked in silence down another hallway, one that was particularly dark with only a few electric lamps on the walls to light the way.

Hinata felt tainted now. She had been in his _room, _on his _bed, _and he had been _near her! _Gaah! Evilness! Starting a random tune to whistle, she felt better now that she was out of there. She was safe, from his room, from him.

It didn't cross her mind to ask for how long.

666

April 5th, 11:03AM

666

Kurenai opened yet another door, and Hinata followed her almost grudgingly inside. The door opened to reveal a flight of stairs, spiraling downwards like the interior of a lighthouse.

This must have been the 18th door she'd opened in fifteen minutes. "It's just here. Nobody knows this room but me and Anko, so don't expect to be barged in on." Hinata nodded, bored out of her mind but having more sense than to say so. What idiot spoke their mind all the time, anyway?

At the bottom of said stairs was yet another door. It was painted maroon-red with a wooden sign nailed to it. The ink was too worn for it's words to be made out, but that was fine, as Kurenai paid it no mind. She turned the silver, shiny knob with a small twist and pushed the door open. She nudged Hinata into it, and she took that as a gesture meaning that this room should be safe.

It was incredibly dark, and she could only see with the feeble help of a tiny blue wax candle on a brown table as big as the bed she'd just been on. She heard Kurenai walk somewhere and light some type of match and she heard it sizzle somewhere. That sizzle seemed to cause lights everywhere to turn on.

Six lights flickered on, one in each corner of the room. (It was oddly shaped.) Many lights flickered on from a polished chandelier hanging above the table with the original candle, and Hinata saw the room for what it really was. And she liked it.

It was a large room, large enough for Hinata to play tag with many a person and not bump into anything. A dining table was in the middle, books, cards and pencils were scattered a bit messily over it. A fireplace was carved out in the front of the room with two leather sofas in front of it. A dartboard hung on the farthest wall, with about twenty or so darts stuck around it, only three being in the middle.

There was a hook in the ceiling that had three ropes hooked over it. These ropes were tied around a curved glass vase, which held the most beautiful, colorful flowers Hinata had ever seen. The blossoms and petals ranged from snowy white through golden-yellow intermixed with lilacs and crimsons all the way to the darkest violet.

They were arranged in a manner that reminded her of the girl called Ino in her Village, who owned a flowershop from her parents' time. She almost dared to stand on her tiptoes and try to snag the one nearest to her, they looked so very beautiful, but she knew better.

"This is sort of my own privacy room," Kurenai explained, smiling and brushing the glass flower vase with her fingertips. "When anybody screws around with me too much, I give 'em a piece of my mind, and then come down here to relax. I think Kakashi once tried to follow me here on one of his days off, but I lost him, so he shouldn't know. Bastard's always trying to find out where I am."

"Why?"

"Because he's my—like that. I don't know, really." Kurenai put on an exasperated expression as though Kakashi were a burden and yet a good burden. "Kakashi just doesn't answer questions like, 'why do you do this or that?' He just smiles that weird smile and says, 'just because.' I can't get a real sentence out of his masked mouth! "

"Oh…" Hinata thought back to about twenty minutes ago, when she'd first seen Kakashi. He had called out something to them. She felt a sudden urge to hear his voice. From his sweet expression and the fact that he waved, he seemed like a nice enough person. Why would a nice person keep the shy little Hinata Hyuuga locked up anywhere? Why would a nice guy like that take orders from someone like Kiba and keep her stuck in this place?

Hinata cast another glance at the vase, then saw all the scattered books on the table. She walked over and looked over all their titles. A little more than half, she saw, were novels, (books with a story in them) while a little less than half were some sort of encyclopedias. (books with information in them)

She pushed over one called _Lassie _and another called _Rowan Hood Returns _(she considered that maybe Kurenai had a thing for young adult fiction) and blinked with surprise at what she saw under them. It was her favorites book series. _'I can't believe she has these! Does she really read them?' _She thought. She pushed _Rowan Hood Returns _back over the three books she's just seen and looked around the rest of the room as Kurenai sat in a wooden chair on the other side of the table.

Kurenai sighed with pleasure. "So…what are your hobbies, Hinata? If you can't find something oriented on it in this room, then I'll just have to give myself a paper cut." She forced a laugh and held up her finger nervously, hoping she wouldn't have to do that.

Now feeling safer and happier, Hinata replied slowly, thinking of the books she'd just seen on the bottom of one of the piles, "I like…to read fantasy…and some adventure, and I like to swim and climb trees."

"Well, we don't have a spring in here, but I've got some good fantasy novels in here. You like McCafferey? Anne McCafferey?" Hinata remembered that she owned three books by that author. Long chapters. Good, long chapters by McCafferey.

"I read some of her books. I like Dragonsong and Dragondrums the best."

Hinata recalled the rather odd names given to the fire lizards in Dragonsong. Beauty made sense for a gold fire lizard, and she'd always thought Rocky was pretty darn cool for a big, bold male bronze…But just because greens were common and a little on the dumb side didn't mean they had to be given equally dumb names like "Auntie One and Auntie Two"! They had deserved at least a _name _rather than an _assigned number._

"Uh…let's see…" Kurenai pushed over piles of books on the dining table. She picked up two and held them in her arms, still scanning for a few more. Did she expect Hinata to finish a whole McCafferey book and just whiz on to the next? Sure, she was one of the fastest readers even Sakura knew, but McCafferey took time. McCafferey books were _long._

Hinata saw that she had "The White Dragon" and "Dragonquest" in her arms. They were small copies, probably only a little bigger than an adult man's hand, but hardcover. That was good. Paperback just didn't seem to fit McCafferey somehow.

She saw Kurenai stare hard at the book Hinata had seen before. Seizing opportunity, she pointed to it. "That! I _love _that series! It's one of my favorites, ever." She moved forward with an outstretched hand to grasp it, but Kurenai's stare stopped her.

"You like it, too?"

"Yes, I love it! I can't understand the way all the characters talk, and sometimes I have to slow down to get what they're saying, but I still love that series."

Kurenai made a happy cry. "Yes! You can understand what the characters say?"

"I can, but it might take a couple seconds." The Hyuuga girl replied, her eyes glued to the book.

"Good!" Kurenai snatched up the book and slammed it into Hinata's hands. She took another copy of the book and sat at one side of the table and Hinata sat on the other. Kurenai moved most of the books away so that nothing was between them.

"Okay." Kurenai said. "I love this series too, it's always been a good one that surprised and enchanted me. But the characters always talked to weird I can barely read it now. Can you help me with that?"

"You mean like, read with you?"

She nodded.

"Sure. I would read Redwall with anybody!"

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April 5th, 11:17AM

(AN: Yes, Hinata's favorite series is Redwall, by Brian Jacques, featuring talking, British-accented animals, usually moles, mice and squirrels, living in an abbey called Redwall, and their adventures of defending it from generic evil rats and weasel and ferret pirates and thieves.)

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His hands were in his pockets, and his eyes half-lidded as he walked calmly to the Gate where Shino and Kakashi stood talking. Kakashi had sensed him coming a long way off, and now he slammed his fist against the metal. The vibration opened the gate for Kiba and he walked through without a glance to either of his friends.

Shino, what with his sunglasses hiding his true eyes, was able to get a look at Kiba without Kakashi knowing before he walked off into the shadows of the forest. There was a look in his eyes that Shino had never seen before. It wasn't the usual cockiness or pride he always carried with him, nor the sulking anger when he occasionally lost a match of sorts.

Whatever it was, it shone in his eyes like starlight and it was obvious his _mind_ wasn't where _he_ was. Kakashi, with a glare from the sun, was able to tell that Shino's eyes were in fact behind him and looking towards Kiba. He turned and saw Kiba's face before he disappeared into the trees with a sudden burst of agility.

"What's wrong with him?" Kakashi muttered. "Don't tell me that girl he found has sparked his interest…"

"Have _you _ever seen his eyes like that?" The younger one said back.

"Not since he first tasted turkey. Oh, was that a day…" Kakashi groaned and placed his palm over his eye so that now his entire face was covered.

"Is he keeping her? That girl with dark hair?" Shino's voice was content and nonchalant, like Kiba keeping a girl was almost as normal as a summer storm.

"Kurenai hasn't told me yet. She doesn't tell me anything unless I _personally _ask her, and usually that takes awhile. But I would think he is. Why else would he sit in his room all night watching her sleep?"

"He said something or other about 'smile.'"

"Ah, we'll know soon. I'll be free for two days when Haku takes his shift at sundown with Keiga."

"He kept that _sabertooth?" _Shino growled with a tone of anger, twitching his finger inside his pocket.

"Just because that dog bit you doesn't mean it's a sabertooth. And, you, being so absolutely smart, should know that a sabertooth is an extinct _feline." _

There was a dark growl from somewhere far off, continuing on like it had no off button, and Kakashi called out into the forest, "It's dead now, you know! Extinct!" Kakashi would never understand that Kiba was simply a dog person, and even the talk of cats, even extinct cats, annoyed him to no end.

The sound lowered, but with his keen hearing beyond even that of a wolf, Kakashi could still hear it going on softly. Shino looked away as though insulted, and Kakashi whispered to himself, "He's definitely interested in her…" And the growl stopped, replaced with something reminiscent to a purr.

All of their kind purred, Shino and Kakashi knew, but in the manner Kiba was using it, it suggested he was _very, very, _happy.

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April 5th, 12:44PM

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_"So be it. We search together. Matthias, Basil, Jess and Orlando linked paws with Jabez. 'Together!' Rosyqueen pointed the direction. "South, that's the way the slavers always travel, though no one knows what lies beyond the Great South Plateau. But afore you travel, you must eat with us."_

Hinata set down her book and sighed. She and Kurenai, in about and hour and a half, had read aloud to page 119 of Mattimeo. After finding out that Hinata's favorite Redwall book was Salamandastron, they had read the last twenty pages or so of that book. Since Hinata had read it before, and Kurenai was very close to finishing, they'd decided to finish the book together, and read aloud the climactic ending.

The ending had surprised Kurenai, and after a little confusion, Hinata explained the deaths of two very important characters, Urthstripe and Klitch, and had had a great amount of fun talking about her favorite characters to Kurenai.

After that they had started Mattimeo, a Redwall novel in which the abbey children were kidnapped and needed to be rescued from slavery. Kurenai took a liking to Orlando as immediately as she saw the vicious "Orlando The Axe," as she had not read very far on this book. Hinata liked Jess, just for being a valiant squirrel with a spirit. She and Kurenai agreed that, upon reading about an evil rat named Vitch, it was indeed one of the coolest names ever.

"Well, I'm hungry now." Kurenai informed randomly. "You want something to eat?" Hinata was then aware that she hadn't eaten in awhile, but her stomach didn't rumble.

When _was _the last time she had eaten? _'Oh, that's right.' _She thought. _'Sakura brought bags of cheese crackers and we ate those around 4:30 in the afternoon…' _She recalled the things she had taken in her backsack on the Adventure: the bottle of Gatorade, a watch, three granola bars, packet of fruit snacks, her diary and a pencil to record awesome events such as being sniffed by a deer, and a tuft of Moonbeam's fur for good luck.

Where _was _her backsack? Did anything spill out when Kiba had taken her to this place? She couldn't lost her special tuft of Moonbeam's fur! That little smidge of fur has been stuck to the interior corner of the backsack ever since Moonbeam has mistaken it for a maze of sorts. Well…She could worry later. Hinata was a worrier by nature, and she realized she hadn't worried nearly as much as she usually did. Maybe she was just relaxed.

It didn't matter now, that wasn't a problem.

The backsack was probably on the nightstand in that room she'd woken up in. She hadn't actually seen it there, but, according to Kurenai, Kiba wasn't low enough to do so low as Hinata thought…_that…_would be. Surely he wasn't so bad enough to go looking through her things? She would knee him where the sun don't shine if he did that!

"Yes." She replied. Her backsack could wait, she was hungry now.

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April 5th, 12:51PM

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Kurenai hastily led the way backwards they had come. Hinata thought she recognized the door of the room she'd awoken in, but she couldn't tell exactly. Most doors in the same building look the same. Can't be helped.

They went down a flight of stairs and around the corner. She pushed open one of two double-doors that led into a room possibly as big as half a football field. Most of it consisted of people, but in the corners there were a few sofas and soft chairs, half of them occupied by people eating and chatting.

Tons of people were there, each dressed in a unique outfit that somehow fit their voice and appearance, like Kurenai's fit hers. Almost all of them had rather long and pointed nails that could have stood a trim, but when they laughed, they showed perfect, white teeth, that were somehow also pointed. Hinata stayed close to Kurenai and passed it by as some hereditary thing.

Some of them looked at Hinata and Kurenai, and the older woman introduced her to about ten or twelve people, though Hinata only remembered the names Ayaka, Naruto and Shiira. Most of them looked nice and sweet, smiling and laughing as though at some kind of dinner party, and in fact a few of the older ones held wine glasses half-filled with maroon liquid.

At the other end of a huge room, Kurenai helped Hinata through the hallway and into a kitchen about two and a half times as big as the kitchen at the Hyuuga home. Many types of food were set out on a long table that was as long as the room itself, and people took what they wanted and walked back down the hall into the 'talking room' as Hinata dubbed it.

"Take a plate or bowl," Kurenai told her, pointing to a neat stack of kitchen china with royally beautiful print. "Get whatever you want and meet me back in the "talking room" next to that big blue chair."

"Okay." Hinata chose a plate with a crescent moon design, and looked over everything she saw. She wondered what half of it was, and wondered if some of it was edible, and wondered if it was okay to just take half of everything and stuff it down her throat. While she looked at the food, she got lost in thought wondering what these nice people would say if they saw her stuffing their food down her throat. It was look extremely rude. She decided she'd rather not stuff anything.

She decided to take a glass of ice water, a mini-bowl of strawberries, and a large ladle-ful of something that looked like popcorn chicken, but obviously wasn't, due to its smell. She found a small pot filled with some type of brown-red sauce, looking a lot like mild taco sauce. There was a small spoon inside of it, and a lot was gone, so it must have been pretty good. She spooned two spoonfuls of the stuff and poured it over her popcorn-chicken-like-food.

She weaved through the crowd, saying hello to the woman she remembered was called Ayaka, and found Kurenai saving her a seat on the long, blue sofa that was covered in cool, soft material. Kurenai waved the make sure Hinata saw her, which only effectively embarrassed the dark-haired girl. The tips of her ears warmed, but Hinata cooled them when she thought of being able to eat.

Kurenai had chosen a large plate of salmon with a dark sauce spread over and around it with little leaves by the edge of the plate. Kurenai told her between bites some humorous stories, one of which caused her to laugh so suddenly she choked on her popcorn-chicken-like-food and had to gag to get it down properly.

She was in fact having a good time. She did get a chance to tell Kurenai the story of how she had first tried to give Padfoot a bath, and a boy with dark hair, glasses and a trench coat stood nearby, probably to listen.

Hinata finished the story with a grand finale, "He jumped out of the tub and splashed me over, and then he jumped on my head and out the door in a single leap, yowling bloody murder and then some. I couldn't find the poor cat for four hours!" The boy walked away from them chuckling, probably thinking the ending was funny. Cats were quite irritable creatures, insisting they can give _themselves _a bath…

Kurenai laughed too, and she was sure that this woman was now her friend. Hinata was about to tell the story of when she and Sakura had tried to cut her cousin, Neji's, hair in his sleep, but before she could start, she caught a glance of Kiba weaving through and among the people like a fish downriver.

Some people greeted him and others just nodded, but a few girls giggled at him. He didn't pay attention to any of them. Kurenai began to tell Hinata of a time when she tried to dye her hair blonde, but Hinata wasn't really listening.

'_Why can't he just leave me alone? Oh, what am I saying? He's far enough away, at least, with Kurenai by me.' _She thought, brushing away any worries that came to her. But as she looked closer at him, carefully _not _looking him directly in the eyes, though he for sure wanted to get their eyes locked once more, she saw that Kiba was holding something in his hand. It was square, black with something written in neat print on the front.

'_Is that…!' _Her mind went swimming, back to the worrywart she usually was, but after taking a deep breath, she felt at ease again. _'He's not that low. He's not that low. He's not that low…how low does he go…?' _(AN: Haha. Funny limbo joke.)

Kurenai went on to tell how ridiculous she had looked as a blonde, and how she put the phrase, "dumb blonde" into itself, but Hinata had other things to think about. Kurenai thought Hinata was looking at her. Hinata was in fact looking just beyond Kurenai's ear to see Kiba flashing the square thing around, trying to show it to her without getting Kurenai to notice.

She couldn't stop herself from muttering, "That isn't...!" Quietly, though. "You okay, Hinata?" The older female asked. Hinata nodded and Kurenai went on. Behind her, Kiba's blank face grew into a wicked smirk, and Hinata saw the two words written on the front of the square thing. Kiba held a book. And written on the front of this book was "Hinata Hyuuga."

Kiba held Hinata's diary.

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Wow. He goes freakin' low! Actually, if you understood it right, when Kiba left the estate, (yes, it's an estate, you'll learn more later) he was looking at nothing, sort of. He was, duh, thinking of Hinata. He left the estate to get the diary. We can assume he left her backsack behind when he brought her home and went back to get it, and the contents inside. Will Hinata get it back? Did he already read it? Does he know her one fear? We'll see.

Ta…Storm


	4. Diary Search

I know, I know. Late update. Can't help it. Late for me, considering I am usually one of the the fastest updaters on the site, a week update is like a year in my time. I've been Spring Breaking my ass off. My brother came on the 15th of April, from Florida. Since he's learning to be a video game designer, he has a like three tons of vieo games and I spent hours playing them all. A LOT.

Anyhow, my Spring Break is nearly over, even though my brother is going to be here for another week because his break is a week after mine. I've been busy screwing around and having fun with my brother 'cause we get along great. Back to the story.

News. Those of you who read Black Wings of My Secrets may already know this: about 2 weeks ago, my dog pulled me too hard on a walk tripping me and causing me to sprain my ankle. It hurt like fuck. After many pills and much discomfort to walking, it healed, about 3 days ago. Guess what? I was walking my dog again, and she pulled, and I fell…

And sprained my OTHER ankle How fuckish is that?

Now then…Some of you may be beginning to believe Hinata's original theory of Kiba being a "rapist". Because…really, who steals a girl's diary after taking her into his home? But Kurenai said something like "playboy bachelor" and that kinds of stands out, too. we can only wait.

Reviews…

**YamiKitsuneKami: **Haha. I know. Have you ever seen that happen though? Have your friends had theirs stolen? Hm. Bait. I e-mailed you about that, so you know what to think about. So…yeah.

**Ephona: **Thank you.

**Chii-Niwokauru:** Well, here's what happens next. Let's watch.

**ANBUKaida:** I, ME? STORM? Have Grammatical and Spelling _Errors!_ Wow…No one on planet Earth has ever told me that before, seriously. If someone noticed it, then…I must find a hammer and hit myself with it…

**Torn00: **Yes, thank you. ANBUKaida was the only one in my life to ever point out that I had some errors, but I am now going to be even more careful about what I'm doing. (As though that's possible. I got an A+ in Keyboarding in the 6th grade!) Oh, and…when did I say mark of the Devil? I can't remember anything about it…

Fourth.

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April 5th, 1:18

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Hinata made a choking sound, but Kurenai wasn't distracted. She went on with her blonde story, taking no notice of the fact that Hinata's eyebrow was twitching. The boy behind her noticed, though, and his look couldn't get much more cocky. The dark-haired girl wanted to get up and sock that guy in the gut where he stood!

But she couldn't. That was draw far too much attention, and possibly get an unwanted reaction from the one she wanted to punch. (She could help but think: What if…he punched back? Or did something weird?)

She shot him a look that was made of pure warning. He raised his eyebrow in a challenge. He was daring her to get up and try to take it from him, and he might have even known she didn't want to do so. "But when I washed it out, half my hair was yellow and half my hair was dark grey! You would have died laughing, trust me!" Kurenai went on.

'_That…that little thieving, snitching, _rapist!'She thought angrily. Her face was nearly blank, showing only half-interest to Kurenai though her mind was on Kiba. _'Oh God, oh freakin' God! What do I do! I have my whole life and half of Neji's, Sakura's, Sasuke's, Ino's, and my cats' are in there! And there's no lock! Stupid, stupid, stupid! What do I do?' _

Her mind thought up no answer, and she did nothing. Kurenai and everyone else in the huge room went on, taking almost no notice of either of the two. That was the point when he stuck his thumb in the middle of the book, preparing to open it.

He had one of the first pages ready to be opened. He was double-dog-daring her to come up, at the least. Hinata held down firm. _'That's sort of okay. The first 6 or 7 pages aren't the worst he could see…' _He stared down at the front of the black book, where Hinata had written her name in silver, glittery ink. He cocked his head at a dog-like angle.

Oh, yes…He didn't know her name yet, did he?

Now he did.

He looked up slowly, blinking at her with something fond in his eyes. He switched his black, thin gaze from her diary to her name. He was obviously asking something.It was a questioning look she hadn't yet seen in his eyes. He must have been asking something having to do with her name. Hinata's brows stopped twitching.

Did he…like her name…?

He brought on a new sort of smile. He looked at her with a suddenness that was able to catch her eyes and keep them there with that damn effect he had…she couldn't look away, and he sure as hell didn't either. _'Kurenai, stop yapping about being blonde! My eyes are stuck on something they don't deserve to be stuck on!' _

His thumb flicked at the book, making it open and close suddenly and quickly like a disturbed animal. _'He's not just daring me to go after him…he's threatening me!' _She thought frantically. _'That…that…oh what the heck! That BASTARD!' _This was perhaps the third time in the girl's life that she had ever said that word. If Kiba were to try one more little thing like it, she'd be saying it a lot more…

'_Kurenai said you weren't that low, oh you go so low you're six feet—no, you're _sixty _feet under! You're below ocean level, low to the center of the earth and right out through _Antarctica_! Kurenai, shut up! Please! Turn around!' _

But the woman with grey hair and red eyes still had some blonde portion of her blonde story to tell… "And by the time it was all out, there was this sheen in my hair that was so blinding I couldn't go out in bright sunlight for four days…after four days of solitary confinement, or something like it, everything was back to normal…I think. Hey, you okay? You look real pale, Hinata."

"I…uh…bathroom?" She finished lamely.

"Oh. See that door in the corner there? The blue one? Go through it, and it's the last one on your right."

"…Yup." Her mind wasn't on Kurenai, but the elder took no notice. She pierced her fork into the last pieces of her salmon and chewed on them slowly, savoring their taste, and now taking little notice that Hinata wasn't going in the direction of the blue door.

Kiba saw her half-chatting with Kurenai beforehand and snuck away just as the dark-haired girl began getting up. He glanced back twice to make sure she was following, and when she lost him he made sure that she again found his trail. It took a few minutes for Hinata to find he had led her back to the double doors through which she and Kurenai had come.

She stood on her tiptoes and looked over a tall, blonde boy with ocean-blue eyes to see Kiba staring back at her. His hand was on the door, his fingertip tapping on it, as though waiting to open it for her. She dodged around the blonde man, who she swore had looked at her, just as Kiba opened the door and walked out.

Hinata followed and the door swung closed behind her, cutting her off from what could have been a hundred people. A hundred people could have protected her from Kiba. Now she was alone and he could jump out at her with no warning if he wanted. But she didn't see him in that hallway. _'Oh no…how many doors are there? A dozen? I can't look through all of these! Damn you and your being-a-bastard-ness!' _

She gave up doing something logical and took to looking through each and every door, hoping he would be behind one of them. Hinata saw objects she'd never seen before, paintings more beautiful than the real things, rooms that looked so strange she thought they belonged to aliens, and closets full of stuff she didn't dare think about.

She was about to open her 37th door, (she had gone down two hallways now and turned a corner) something white caught her eye. She turned swiftly to it, frowning in that direction so as to appear brave, but saw nothing but a hallway, lamps to light it up and a rug going all the way down it. Nothing special. Every hallway in the building had lamps on the walls to light it up, and a long, narrow, dark rug going down it.

'_It's like the place is _designed _to get me lost…' _She thought, closing a door that had led to what looked like a workout gym.

'_Which is, of course, why he baited me here…get me lost, force me to bump into him, hold my diary above my head, mock my shortness, while everyone else was in the "talking room" eating lunch…oh my lord! What the heck am I doing here?' _Turning around another corner and getting even more lost, Hinata found this place feeling too silent.

Every hallway, corner and door looked almost the same, everything was still except for shadows passing because of the open windows and their curtains, and there was barely the sound of a breeze outside. It was just too damn quiet! Before she could stop herself, she found she had whimpered. She slapped her face lightly, telling herself to get a grip, more loudly than she knew.

"Damn it, self, get it together!" She whispered loudly. "It's a big house, everything looks the same and nothing's moving except you. So what? I can take it just fine...can't I? Sakura's influence has rubbed off on me enough to make me punch anybody who gets too close. My 12th birthday party proved that…sorry, Ino, but that donkey pin-tail didn't belong in my shoulder!"

She found humor in remembering that day. Neji's supposed girlfriend Tenten had suggested that Hinata play Pin The Tail On The Donkey for a last time before the clock told her she was officially a teenager. Ino's turn had fatefully led to Hinata socking her in the gut and she had actually needed medical attention for it. Hinata recalled the doctors saying something about the fact that "your daughter punched Miss Yamanaka so hard, it triggered a blood increase that nearly led to a seizure."

So if Hinata could almost force a seizure on someone with just an angered punch, she could deal with some boy like Kiba, right? Right!

(AN: I don't know anything about that medical fact I just typed, and it's probably not even true, but let's just ignore it and pretend it's true.)

She balled her fists to make herself feel better, and for a few minutes, she felt quite brave continuing searching the house. But as it had happened before, she saw a flash of color at the corner of her eye. It was half-white and half-brown. _'It's just…a dog or something. Dogs are white and brown.'_ She thought reasonably, calming slightly_ 'I think Mrs. Tsune across the street from my home has a dog that's white and brown. Skips, is his name, I think…yeah, maybe Skips came all the way into the mountains to find me and say 'Arf, arf, Hinata, how's it going?' Okay…that's good…' _

But it flashed in the corners almost every time she turned them, like it was watching her and running when she got too close to it. Maybe it really WAS a dog following her. It wouldn't surprise her. Kiba had acted particularly like one when she had been with him. Maybe he kept one? Or maybe Kurenai or that Ayaka person or Kakashi kept one?

Hinata sped up. "Just a dog, just a dog." She told herself. "Dogs follow people, they're social. They just do that, I shouldn't even be worrying." But before long her speed walking became jogging and even that didn't keep those damn flashes out of her eyes. It wasn't the sun's glare or the curtains flying up suddenly, she knew that. Something or someone was there, and following her.

Jogging didn't last long, either. She ran, keeping her mouth shut and breathing normally. If she panted, it would look like she was desperate or afraid, and that was the last thing she'd show her pursuer. Her long legs kept her going for awhile, and twice she stepped hastily down flights of stairs. How big _was _this place?

As she turned another corner, one that looked exactly like each and every other one she'd seen, she bumped into something large and white, and fell backwards, barely catching herself with her hands. She shook her head and looked up. It was a person, and not Kiba, and that made her feel better.

His hair was dark and could have stood a little cut, and he wore a large, white trench coat that covered half his face, all of his neck, and his arms. He wore dark pants with a rip near the ankle, like some animal had bitten through it. Black sunglasses covered up his eyes, but from his relaxed posture, Hinata could tell he was casual, probably not bothered by seeing her here.

But he said nothing.

'_Wasn't…what's his name? Wasn't Kakashi talking with him this morning? What's this one's name? Haku, Shino or Anko. Those were the only names Kurenai told me, so he must be one of them. Not Anko, actually. That's a girl name.' _

"I…uh…was, looking for…someone took my…" Words couldn't be formed from the girl's mouth. The sunglasses made it look like his eyes were plain black, solidly. Hinata was suddenly reminded of the fact that if one take a stuffed animal with big black eyes and walked all around it, no matter where one stood it would always look like the thing is staring at you. Because of his dark glasses, this was how Hinata felt.

She tried to get up, but what she thought was a stare kept her uncomfortably down on the floor. "I—er, Kiba took my diary, and he went out the d-door and—"

"And you're lost, right?" He finished. She nodded in a rather stupid fashion, then found the courage to get up and stand. Now comparing their heights, she felt intimidated. He was _tall. _Kiba had been tall as well, but this boy was still a few inches above him. He just looked….intimidating. "Y-Yes. I don't really know how big the house is, and I think I'm just going in circles or squares…or…something."

He looked up, past Hinata's head, like something had flown over it. Even though she couldn't really tell, Hinata could nearly sense that he was glaring at someone. But when she turned around to look, she saw no one. "So, you want me to take you back to the Parlor?"

"Where's that?" She asked, twitching her fingertips. It flet strange, not scary, just strange, to look him in the eyes when she couldn'teven _see _his eyes. "Where you were before. You were telling a story to Kurenai about a cat named Padface, right?"

"Pad_foot." _Hinata corrected, feeling a little insulted. "He's my pet cat."

"Cat?" The tall boy asked, and his eyebrows raised up. "Yes, that's the name of my cat. Is that bad?"

The boy shook his head, but she knew she heard him chuckling at her. _'What?' _she thought angrily. _'What's wrong with Padfoot? What's wrong with cats? Cats are wonderful animals.' _

"Come on, let's go." He said flatly, losing any tone of a chuckle he'd had. "You're closer to it than you think." Hinata moved out of his way and he started walking down the hall, hands still in his pockets.

"No, not yet!" She said, catching up and getting in his way of going farther. He stopped, not wanting to shove right past her. "Kiba's got my diary! I saw him with it while I was in the…Parlor, that's what it's called, right? He led me out here and he still has it. I'm _not _letting him get away with it."

Again the tall boy looked above her head, at something or other down the hallway, and again when Hinata followed his gaze she saw no one. What was he looking at? "He'll give it back," The boy said flatly. "He wouldn't read it unless you were there to see him do it."

'_Oh do I feel better now!' _She droned mentally.

"Damn you," The boy whispered quietly. He hadn't been looking at her. "What?"

"N-Nothing…actually, it might be good for your well-being to turn around." Hinata turned swiftly, making sure her back faced the boy so that nothing could get her from behind.

"Groh, alebi—? Kiba?" As she tried fruitlessly to form words, she could only choke out his name.

Indeed he was there, standing with his arms crossed at the end of the hall, his black eyes searing into the boy's like fire. He still held her diary in his right hand, loosely between three fingers with pointed nails. His lip was curled up a little, and his pointed fang-like tooth stuck out irritably.

"What the hell are you doing, Shino?" He growled. _'Oh…so he's Shino. That could be useful in dire times, when I need to call his name for help…hopefully I won't have any.' _

Kiba made a growling sound and stalked up to Shino and herself. She moved behind the tall, dark-haired boy with glasses. She felt safer behind him. A nice, big, intimidating shield, was what she considered him as at this point.

Kiba stared Shino in the eyes, unblinking. The slits of his pupils now more than before looked like an animal's. they stretched up and down like a strip, like a snake's eye. She was able to see Shino's arm flinch, as though afraid. He stepped out of Kiba's way, and he walked closer to her. Her fingertips twitched with what she thought was fear. He was looking down at her, still with the dangerous look in his eyes.

Shino ruffled his jacket as though to break a barrier of silence. "I didn't do anything, Kiba. She ran into me and asked me to help get her diary from you. I didn't even give a straight answer." _'What in all blazes is he doing?' _Hinata's mental voice screeched. _'He was going to help me, I know it! Now here he is acting like he's committed a Sin.' _

Kiba growled again and glared at Shino. "You better not have," He snapped. "She's _mine."_

'_Ack! Unholy thoughts!' _

"I didn't do anything to_ insult_ you, did I?" Shino challenged, and though the collar of his jacket hid his face, Hinata could somehow detect a smirk under it.

Kiba's growl intensified and his eyes widened. Shino gasped, took a step back and looked away, as though embarrassingly defeated. He turned to Hinata and said, "I saved you from a lot of things just now," He said. "I hope you're grateful." And though his words were rather rude, they'd been spoken in a polite tone, like he was glad he had done such things. With another warning sound from the boy that Hinata feared and hated, Shino speed-walked away, as though afraid something would catch him.

He turned the corner, his footsteps echoed, and he was gone. So were her safety measures.

As soon as he head spent a good three and a quarter minutes glaring after the spot where Shino had left, Kiba snapped his head to look down at her. She twitched her fingers nervously. "What the hell was that?" He growled.

"I…was ju-just lost, and he was there! I asked for help, that was all." She told the truth, but he looked as though she was telling the worst lie on Earth. She made sure that she looked down at her feet, and gulped just once. He must have heard it for sure.

His hands was on her shoulder, and though the grip was firm, it didn't hurt. This didn't keep Hinata from flinching at his poisonous touch as he growled out, "Don't. Ever. Again." She nodded slowly, "…Okay…" She sounded more like a child being scolded by her father than a girl being scolded by her…what…what was he to be called by her that could be a safe name to be called? ...There _were _no safe names with him, she realized!

Slowly his hand moved around and grasped hers. She trembled almost spasmodically as though having a seizure. "Come on, let's go." She allowed her feet to go where he traveled. "To...where?"

He laughed once, his angry tone from before gone. "Where do you think? Kurenai? Hell, no! My room."

"Eh?"

666

Haha. Yeah. Cannot explain anything right now! Mom is almost home, practically down the road and really pissed about taxes and stuff and I'd rather not be around or on the computer when she'd ranting.

Ta…Storm


	5. Read Or Die

I have over 30 reviews for last chapter and it will take too long to reply to them all so I won't do them for this chapter. I will just skip them, just this once and get on with it.

Long-awaited Fifth chapter…

666

April 5th, 1:39

666

'_Okay, just calm down, Hinata! It'll be just fine! Last time you were alone with him…no, that's not good…the time before that…no, he actually acted like a rapist that first time…damn you! Ack! Evil little snitching freak! You're making me curse! You're going to make me end up like Sakura!' _

Her short, dark hair was practically bobbing up and down as she trembled. He was walking slowly, not hurrying at all…she didn't know if this made it worse or better. It felt terribly scary…bastard was milking this situation for all it was worth!

He'd scared Shino off, which was weird, because Shino had actually seemed _afraid _of Kiba and after his first try at it, he'd been _afraid _to defend Hinata. What was wrong with standing up for her? He'd done nothing wrong. Just tried to help.

He halted at a door painted shiny and maroon that seemed all too familiar, and she twitched her arm spasmodically as though having a seizure. But he didn't seem to notice or care as he took his time turning the silver, polished doorknob and opening the door into the dim room.

'_And he's still got my diary…' _Her mind droned sadly on. _'I hope to God he's not a real rapist…I wonder if he would have…no, would he?' _

"The air isn't poison," He "reminded" her. "And no," He added, "I don't keep condoms in here." The girl froze.

'…_Wow. He is some kind of sorcerer!' _

She felt a small bit of relief when she saw that Kiba didn't shut the door, just pushed on it, leaving it only half-closed. Good, someone could still walk by in the hallway and see them, and hopefully rescue her from this. Sunlight streamed in from both the doorway and his open window, but the room was still pretty dark.

Even with good vision, that doesn't mean she liked the dark.

"C-Can I have…that back now?" I meekly asked. _'Come on, Hinata!' _I told myself. _'Yell at 'im! Snatch that book from his hands and give him that slap he deserves!' _Hinata took a mental note that she thought weird thoughts around this boy.

"Hmmmm…" He sat on the bad, crossed one leg over the other and took up a thoughtful face with closed eyes and pursed lips. He looked a little strange like that. According to Sakura, it takes a long while for a boy, man, or any age-type of male to try to think about something, be it an algebra problem, which pellets to buy his pet hamster, or what kind of cheese he liked the best. Judging by the fact that about eight minutes of their lives were eaten up by Kiba sitting there "thinking," Sakura was most likely right…unless this particular male was just stupid.

"No."

"I want it back!" And without thinking, Hinata rushed up to him and lashed out her hand in an attempt to snatch it away. It was a vain attempt.

He moved his hand up at the last minute and instead of grasping her diary, tightly, Hinata grasped Kiba's neck, tightly, thereby coming close to strangling him. He fell backwards onto the red sheets of his bed, and Hinata with him. But she managed to move herself off so that only her arm and shoulder were touching his body.

"No stealing." He scolded with a smile.

"Exactly!" Hinata snapped. "So give back said stolen item!"

"Naw, don't wanna."

"But you just said…!"

"Finders, keepers…Hinata."

She froze and her hand retreated back to her sides when he spoke her name. He said it in a certain…way. A way that made her name sound prettier than it really was. She liked it, but because it was HIM speaking, she didn't like it. Such feelings of contradiction confuse girls like Hinata.

"It's a pretty name," He remarked with a smile. "Hinata…I like it. I really like it."

Hinata turned away as she felt her ears begin to slowly warm up and she desperately began to think of things to cool them down. As you know, Hinata doesn't blush, usually. Her ears get red and warm, sometimes hot. But when Hinata's ears just get too hot and berry-red, it all goes to her face, and this causes her to blush. Hinata blushing can only be caused by seriously uh…suggestive things…like some person like Kiba saying she had a pretty name.

'_This room…it's cool. Cold, almost. Think of cold. Snow, ice, frozen…think Sakura's boyfriend…what was that guy's name? Sasuke, that's right. Oh, and his brother, Itachi! Oh, when he first saw his little brother and Sakura talking together…he looked at me all weird, like it was my fault or something. Now THAT was a cold look. Yes! I must think of Itachi's look!' _

"Well?" She squeaked, hoping to get somewhere with only that word.

"Well what?"

"What am I up here for, that's what!" She snapped back.

But when she realized what she'd done, she turned her head away and gulped, then bit her tongue so it would move off her teeth. _'Stupid, stupid Kiba! You make me act like Sakura! I don't want to! It's all badass, like she'd call it. Ack! I'm still cussing like her…no, this is bad, very bad…' _

"Oh, we're up here to read this!" He chirped, swinging around her diary in his fingers. Hinata's face screwed up and her fingers twitched spasmodically as though having their own private little seizure. "W-What?"

"You heard me right, and you know you did."

Hinata watched him. He was going to read her diary. He was next to her. She could see the words as he read them. He would more than likely read them aloud. He would probably give her a weird look when he read page 6. He would tease her for it…

Pages 1-7 have almost nothing really important or revealing on them, EXCEPT for page 6, which told that Hinata's greatest fear was thunder. Hinata didn't like many people knowing about that.

The only individuals who knew about that were herself, Neji, Sakura, Hanabi, and Shikamaru, the boyfriend of Ino, the flowershop girl. God knows how it'd leaked out, but Sakura had threatened him with sharp and pointed rocks enough to know that the boy would never tell.

"Y-You…brought me to your room so…I could watch you read my diary?"

"That's the picture."

And for one of the first times she could remember, Hinata frowned. She tightened herself and braced her jaw to say the words she'd wanted to say for hours, for hours that seemed to pass like weeks.

"You know what? When I first saw you, I thought were…sort of…a _rapist. _Now…God, I just don't know _what _you are!" She frowned again, gave the brown-haired boy an uncharacteristically dark look, turned away and crossed her arms. Hinata felt usually soft and weak shoulders go rigid and hard like the force of steel, feeling a sort of pride she hadn't felt in years, a pride she'd seen in Sakura's eyes all her life that she had wanted to experience: the pride of telling someone off. Hinata didn't understand nor care that she was showing girl power.

She expected some snappish or cocky remark but was only greeted by silence. _'It's okay…it doesn't matter. I finally d-did it! I told him off! I told _somebody _off! Take that, Father! Take that, Uncle! Take that, world! Hinata Hyuuga finally—'_

"So you want to start now?"

"Hm!"

"I kinda already read part of the first page, but don't worry. I won't tell anybody you're not creative."

Hinata impulsively lashed out with her hand and tried to nab her precious diary, but Kiba moved his arm up in the nick of time for Hinata's hand to pound harmlessly on his red bed sheets. "Whoa, Bessie!" He smiled with mirth. "There a problem, miss?"

"YES! Give my damn diary back, you piece of _crap!" _A fraction of a second later Hinata's face was aflame with a blush so fiercely red it had skipped her ears and gone right to her face. She clapped both hands over her face and turned away, folding her legs up so she could hide her face between her knees.

'_No, no, no! I should never have said that!' _A habit of Hinata's was to blame herself for every little thing, even if it wasn't her fault. But if it was her fault, she'd go about it the completely wrong way, making a mountain-sized deal out of an ant-sized one.

'_He'll never give my diary back now, now that I've proved myself as a freakish twisted, wicked cusser! Stupid, stupid Hinata, why did you do that? What kind of look is he going to give you now? Augh! This is terrible! I'll never see Sakura or Neji or Hanabi again and I have to be pent up in this stupid boy's house for the rest of my life because he found me alone in the woods! UGH!' _

"Uh…Sorry." His coarse voice brought her out of her insane mental-fest, but she couldn't bring up the courage to turn around and face him. Instead she just moved her hands away from her face, leaving only her legs and knees to hide herself in. "Just having fun. I thought Kurenai told you."

"She didn't tell me anything about you that that I would have liked…" Hinata muttered from her "hiding spot."

She heard a dull breath that she guessed was some kind of annoyed sigh and then Kiba hitting something hard, likely out of frustration. Hinata bravely tried to talk once more. "Why do you ask? Is there a reason I _s-should _like you?"

"Hell, yes!"

The reply was so sudden and sharp it caused the small girl to flinch.

"Firstly, I like you."

Hinata struggled in a losing battle not to start crying right then and there. It was all she could do to shiver and not cry, yet continue to hide her face. Kiba must have sensed something of her mood, as he went on to say, "I'm more fun to be around than that insect addict Shino," Kiba began to lift his fingers as he counted his compatible qualities, "and less retarded than that girly Haku, less of total bitch than Anko or Kurenai, and _better _than Naruto in and at everything!"

Hinata, remembering the bright and cheerful blonde called Naruto, whom Kurenai had introduced her to in the parlor, couldn't help but bring up a smile. Of course, still tucked in something like the fetal position, Kiba couldn't see it. Hinata couldn't help but tune her hearing to him again as he continued. And slowly her mind started to drift from the diary subject.

"I'll do in more detail if you're one of those intellectuals, like Haku calls them…Shino first! He wears that coat practically all year-round, summer, winter, hurricane, drought, Wednesday, Saturday, March, July, day, night, breakfast, dinner, tree, stick, 2:00, 5:31, noon, midnight, dawn, twilight, AND we don't even know if he washes it! But what we do know is that he's a total insect addict bug freak and he barely speaks a word and nobody knows what his eyes look like because he always wears those goddamn shades!"

Hinata couldn't help but poke her tongue out of the corner of her mouth and laugh a little. Her body trembled a bit as she did so, and this did not go unnoticed. Kiba continued, his pointed nails still tracing tiny, random patterns on the small, black diary. Whether or not Hinata had begun to forget about it, he hadn't.

"Haku next," He smirked, reminding himself how much Haku looked like a girl, and how Hinata would likely mistake him for one. "He's got a girly face, girly hair, and his clothes could stand a man's touch—yes, I am a man, you _girl_—and even his voice is sort of crossed! But he wears this weird mask sometimes, mostly when he switches guard duties with Kakashi, and it's supposed to make him look scarier, but it's a gyp and everyone around here knows it. The eye holes are these slits as big as a twig and I don't know how in the hell he sees through them, but I guess he's got good vision or good eyes, what with him being a she-male."

This time, no one could miss the tremor in the small girl's shoulders as she laughed.

Kiba began some insulting rant or other, this time about Kakashi and how stupid he looked with that crazed, tilted haircut, and something or other about him being a pervert because of the hentai books he always read. All through his talk his rough hands were flicking open the little book, a little more each try, until it was fully open to page one, which was written in dark blue ink on a milky white page with silver lines to write on.

With his strange but useful ability of multitasking, he could continue talking and reading at the same time.

_Dear Diary…_

_December 27th, 11:00, watching movie "Larva" with Sakura, Tenten and Neji, and taking break to write entry…_

_Hi…My name is Hinata Hyuuga. This is my 17th birthday, and my best friend Sakura got me this diary to write in. She's been my best friend since I was five years old and her mind and body are practically made of steel, so I trusted her when she said she'd destroy any idiot who dared read my entries. Normally, I don't use diaries, but I'm assured because she specifically told me that if anyone read my diary, she would malice them with a shoehorn. I don't really know what to write, since I haven't had one of these since I was really little, and I was always afraid that somebody would break into my room in the middle of the night and read it. I don't know why. _

_Well, Sakura is sleeping over tonight. (coincidentally, so is Tenten, my cousin, Neji's, err, girlfriend, I believe. She's really nice. She gave me a silver moon locket for my birthday, and I think I can call her a friend now, even if she is a year older than me.) Sakura brought over one of her favorite monster-horror-gore-scary movies with her, called Larva. It's about these black monsters. They're as big as a wolf, but they look like a kite or something like it. They eat through things, like cows and people, but one bullet kills them, so that's good for the movie characters, I guess. _

_We just finished this part where the mother is in the kid's room and she turns around to tell her son there's no monsters in his closet, but when she turns around her kid's getting smothered and eaten by one of them. Tenten made a comment that we won't ever see the little boy's body because TV companies don't allow the carcasses of children to be seen onscreen. Neji laughed at her when she said that, but she just told him to shut up._

_Padfoot keeps his eyes glued to the screen, but Moonbeam looks away sometimes. Even though she's just a pet cat, I think she knows when a movie turns scary. Or maybe she's just a wimp and Padfoot is brave. Neji's watching it with us, too. He told me that if he's not there to watch it with me, I'll get scared and have nightmares. _

_I know he cares about me, but I still find it strange he would watch this with us when Neji doesn't like scary movies at all. I know Tenten is really into movies like this, though, kinda contrasting for his girlfriend. You know, the ones where there's a whole bunch of little monsters invading a not-so-special town? Sakura prefers the ones where one big monster kills off a group one by one, but she says that Larva is so good that she made an exception for it. She says her favorite is one that the Sci-Fi Channel made, called Abominable. She said something about how this guy called Otis died. How he got the front of his skull bitten off, and this other thing about how you could see his brains..._

_I think I should get back now. Tenten's yelling at me to "get back in here for a good part of the movie", but I think it's just because Sakura's in the bathroom and she doesn't feel safe alone with Neji. He might be trying to kiss her. When he left to get a drink she told me he always liked to do that when nobody was around. That makes me wonder what Neji does when he's all by himself. He says he doesn't really do anything, but I know he's good enough to get away with a good, slick lie…that's what Sakura said, not me. Oh, I've got to go now. Sakura's yelling at me. _

_End entry 1 _

By the time Kiba was done reading the entry, he couldn't help but smirk at the character of the one called Neji. For sure, he knew how and when to get his girl. _'Unfortunately, "nice, protective cousin," you can't have Hinata back.'_

It took a little while for him to realize that he'd stopped talking and had his eyes glued to the page. He flicked at the corner of the paper and turned to entries two and three on the next page.

"STOP THAT!"

Because he had his guard down and hadn't been paying attention, Hinata was able to snatch it right from under his hand and press it close to her chest, guarded by both arms. "I can't believe you, Kiba! I just can't! At the least you could stay to your word and read it while I watch instead of behind my back, you damn liar!" She glowered up at him, not noticing how unusual she was acting.

Kiba only stared back.

Then the door opened, and they both snapped their heads to see who had walked in on them. Hinata's head turned at such speed it resulted in a huge, snapping crack.

"_Shino, get out of my room!" _

Indeed, Shino stood in the doorway. One hand in his pocket, one on the door. By the fact that his eyebrows were furrowed together, one could tell he was glaring, frowning or both. "Kiba!" He hissed out savagely. His tone was deeper and lower than she remembered, making him sound as though he were giving a warning. "Yeah, what?" He got up off his bed and stretched his arms with a huge and casual yawn as though he'd been awoken from a nap in the sun.

"Kurenai wants to talk to you. _Now."_ If the warning tone hadn't been in his voice before, it was now.

Kiba's eyes went wide for a moment before they narrowed accusingly. "You little he-bitch—you ratted me out!"

"You were going to read her diary, you fucking idiot. I don't care if she's yours, you just can't do that to any girl It's the rudest possible gesture you can make!" Shino tilted his head back, signaling for Kiba to leave.

Kiba walked slowly out of the room, going especially slow when he passed the slightly taller boy, and making sure to give him the perfect message through his eyes. No need to speak to him, when he could give off a body language message.

_I will get you for this, _Was what he sent.

Shino nodded and made a growling sort of sound that was likely acknowledgement. Shino watched him go down the hallway and turn the corner, until he couldn't hear the footsteps.

Hinata walked up to Shino and bowed respectively to him. "Thank you s-so much! He already read my first entry because he distracted me with these stories about other people…he was about to read the second one when I saw—thank you so much, Shino!"

She smiled at him. Shino stared for a moment, then looked away. "I had to tell. Just because you're his doesn't mean I can't look out for you, too."

_'Ah, yes, that problem again…' _Hinata thought.

He continued a bit more, "Anyone reading anyone's diary is sick. He plays sick jokes on people, can't tell playing between courting. Ask Kurenai or Naruto, they'll know." Hinata looked Shino bravely in the eye, or, the shades. "How c-can I thank you? This means more to me than you can guess."

"Take a quick walk with me. I want to ask you a few things."

"Oh, sure."

Hinata glanced back into Kiba's room once more, for a reason she didn't know. But, since the windows were open, she was able to look outside. Her heart skipped a beat and her eyes widened into huge, silver discs. But she tried not to think of it, and started after Shino, who'd begun to walk away. For outside, dark clouds were gathering.

Thunderstorm clouds.

666

I tried to upload this into the documents section so many times before, but it wouldn't work! In the note last chapter I said I would update something on the 17th, but it's 10:42 in the morning now on July 18th, and just now it's working. It's the damn site's fault that I broke my promise, not mine!

I enjoyed making this chapter, anyhow. It's been 4 months and even though inspiration is still low I was able to force myself to get it done...

Ta…Storm.


	6. Demon

Another month-long wait for a new chapter. Sorry. I've been screwing up my life lately. I have to move in with my grandparents and go to the school in Missouri, which you may already know, but I can't go to school yet. Missouri won't let you go to school unless you live with a biological parent. Grandparents don't count, I'm told. So unless my mom moves there with me I can't go to school.

But she IS going to move in with my grandparents, too, unlike what I thought before. It'll be even cheaper than her living in a craphole in Virginia, and I can go to school. (I'm still disappointed that I have to share a house with her again. Goddamn I hate her so much. Don't look at me like that.)

Me and my dog will be flying out to Missouri this Thursday the 24th. (Yes, my hyper/radioactive dog is going to be on a plane. I know I'm going to hear her screaming and yelping in the cargo bin all through the flight…) My mom is driving there about a week later, since the junk haulers and movers still need to come and take away our stuff, and take some of it to my grandparents' house. At least I get a week away from my mother, and Samus will be there with me! YAY! I love my freak dog to death but she's such a retard. It's like how we all love Naruto. So sweet and adorable, yet so dangerously stupid and needy.

I've also been on deviantART a lot, checking out hellpoemer and arriku and puffsgain and all their awesome works. (Ah…the Naruto seizure dance and the Only You song. Dance, boys, dance!) is disappointing me these past few weeks. None of my favorite stories are being updated. I'm being hypocritical, of course, but I've always been hypocritical.

BLACKBELT RANT BEGIN

I'm especially waiting to Blackbelt to update her stories. She's a wonderful author with talent for…ahem, posseisive lust…but she is SO FREAKING SLOW! Take The Possession for an example. It's a great story and I literally check every day to see it she's updated it, but she's only written 7 chapters…in TWO YEARS! As long as the next chapter comes before my next birthday I think I'll be okay. Apparently she likes SasuXSaku, and she loves Sakura-chan to death but hates Sasuke to pieces. I don't understand that, but it's funny how it works, I think.

She loves everyone to fight over Sakura-chan, who she portrays as a small, short and sinfully cute girl, with a lot of spunk, AKA being able to pound all asses into the dust and pile-drive a rabid grizzly bear until he is no more. Blackbelt also has all the boys lusting after Sakura, but Sakura herself half the time doesn't notice because of her PMS-like attitude of life. The Sakura I type about is more on the tall side, with a little visible muscle on her seen through womanly curves, as intelligent as Einstein tenfold sometimes with a side of cruel humor to her. (Hmm…what the hell am I saying again?) complete opposite of Blackebelt's Sakura, but I think hers is better than mine. More popular…hehe.

My favorites from her are The Possession, Wife Contest and Ocean's Mist. Most of which are SasuXSaku, che. Goddamit woman UPDATE ALREADY! Okay, then I should do the reviews then start typing. It's almost 11 at night and if I go really fast I might have it done by…2 o' clock…

**Reviews: **

**LostsoulofRegret: **Yeah, I wanted Shino to come to the rescue for some situation and that was it. I'm glad you enjoy my story, and I'm sorry the update didn't come as soon as you'd wanted. At least it's not as slow as Blackbelt's.

**SabakunoBrandye: **Going as fast as I can, woman!

**IS2 Pandas: **Typing it right now!

**EXGaara: **I don't like seeing people cry. It makes me nervous. Maybe I should hurry up, then?

**KazukiMidori: **I wondered when some person would say they feel for me on this. Someone did once, but I forget many things. My downfall. One had 200 reviews you say? Damn. Heheh…I make him hot?

**BlackXheart: **I know what you mean. I hate this site already, I always did. It's the people ON the site that make me keep coming back. It's like living in a shitty apartment with a cool plasma screen TV in it. The apartment itself sucks as and you deserve better and you can get it…but the TV is alwas there…with new shows and pretty lights…Have a good sleep, even though it's a month since you told me you needed sleep. Freaking Gaara!

**Shriveled.up.heart: **He's not a meanie, he's a prick. I know these things and Kiba is definitely a prick. Yes, Naruto is in the story if you look hard for his name once or twice and I plan on having him come in for a bigger role…at some…point…

**Quest-N-Mark:** Mental relief? You get that? …Can I have some…? Please!

**PeptoDismal: **The next one is already here if you're reading this. By the way…I can't stop laughing at your name. Because it's so amusing and also it's true. Pepto sucks ass!

**Kunoichi Cutie: **Hehe…updated!

**Kenzie493: **Hmmm…I knew a girl named Mackenzie once…BLAH! Shino has much to say, trust me.

**Bittychan: **Update sequence completed.

**Torn00: **And another new chapter to match.

**Fieryice.t **I also noticed the OOC-ness but it has to be there to make Hinata and Kiba match the way I want them to.

**Ryoko.J.K.: **I know what you mean. I could only find ONE Kiba-Hinata story that really caught my attention and that story hasn't been updated for a whole fucking YEAR! And the author just keeps updating OTHER stories, but NO! not the Dingo, no! He's got other stories, SURE! Pah!

**Black Phantasy: **Let me just say that I'm glad you did a long review. It's appreciated more than you know. Skimming the words, you say? I wish I could do that. I'm addircted to reading everything. I'd skim if I could. Thanks for enjoying. Thanks for the complement on their characterization. I thought it was funny the way I did it, but also found it very strange in itself. Thanks! My heart (partially) melted when you mentioned my writing style. I don't know how to write any other way, seriously, so that made me smile pretty damn big. Thanks for the add, I appreciate it.

**Reluctant-Daughter: **I'd love to continue if the TV wasn't so very addicting.

**Ontotellingoyou: **You can't eated my brains! Your stomach isn't big enough! Grah!

**Akatsume: **Thank you much!

**DefenctiveAngel: **Here's chapter 7!

**Aukima: **Awesome, you say? Hmmmmmmmm…

**Switchblade-boarder: **I know it rox. I invented it and I feel the self-pride!

**Angels-Ramen: **It sucked for me, I was so fucking annoyed and it was so late at night and I just wanted to sleep…at least it worked, though, eventually.

**WTFWonder: **Yes, we must all weep…a little. She's got it good and bad at once.

**Dani's Randome Fox: **Not everyone has said that in Hinata's face. They should though.

**The Norweigian Dragon: **Sweet. Norway. . Haven't done a face in…months. God. Yes. GO SHINO!

Okay…that didn't take as long as I thought. Only 20 minutes. I figured almost 45. I'm getting good! Well it's almost 11:30, my mom's asleep and they're showing Roseanne reruns right now, which I will have to unfortunately ignore as I love Roseanne, Darlene especially, so I think it can get the chapter done by 2AM if my mom doesn't catch me. She never does, though!

**Grand Master FFX: **Yes, Kiba is scary in his own ways. We'll find out about Shino's feeling rights about now, in chapter…um, this is 7, right? You say you read them all in 2 hours? Damn. I usually do that to, reading a nice story until I've sucked it dry in some amount of hours, then it's all gone and I need more violence…chapters, excuse me. Here's chapter 7 for you.

(**my computer screwed up so that review came after my person story response. Sorry, Master FFX.) **

666

April 5th, 2:01PM

666

'_It's okay, Hinata, don't worry. Shino's nicer than Kiba…oh dear lord that didn't sound right! Allright…Shino is a better person than Kiba. Yeah, that's good. Thank you Sakura, for your word manipulation skills.' _

Shino has expertly led Hinata out of the large place, out of every hallway and corridor and up and down many flights of stairs. She even got to see the foyer, which looked to her more like a Holiday Inn lobby because of it's size and style. Once led out of there, Hinata walked right behind Shino and got a look of the real front lawn of the place.

Looking back, she realized it was indeed a mansion she'd been walking around it. The place was at least 8 stories high with a pointed top, likely some sort of penthouse for the house leader of sorts. It covered an area half the size of a football field, and considering modern football that was something. The building was bright red brick with contrastingly pale white window shutters and barely-visible dark brown shingles covering the roof. It sported a white marble porch big enough to have a race on, with a wooden canopy over it so people could come out and watch the rain fall if they wanted.

(AN: Shingles are those square wood things on rooftops, you always see them in movies but you never notice them because it's just a big old rooftop.)

"Come on, I want to go somewhere where Kiba will leave you alone for sure."

"Where's that?"

"Under Kurenai's favorite tree."

Looking out at the huge front lawn, Hinata had a particularly hard time taking it all in. The lawn was the size of a football field in the least. The dark iron gates at the front were barely visible and on the front of the horizon. The lawn was neatly trimmed, with bright green grass perfect for running and playing on, dotted in several places with tall, shady trees, perfect for relaxing on, or relaxing _in. _Brightly colored flower patches dotted a few spots around the lawn.

The dark-haired girl turned around to look at the building once more. It's bright red color stood out like a sore thumb in the green of the lawn, but somehow it made the place seem nicer. She saw by the way the iron gates moved behind the mansion that the place must have a gigantic backyard as well, so only two corners of the whole lawn could be seen from the front lawn, and they were both covered with dark, tall, shady trees.

From the direction they seemed to be going, Shino was taking her to the corner of the lawn, where more trees were. She looked over her shoulder, a seemingly instinctive action since she'd met Kiba, but since she saw he wasn't there, she let out a long sigh. This drew Shino's attention.

"You allright?"

"J-Just making sure he's not going to…well, _jump _me again."

Shino gave a slow nod and turned away. "Don't worry about him. I sent him off to Kurenai and he knows better than to disobey her. If he does, he gets a good clawing. Kurenai likes you a lot, so you'll be safe a lot of the time while you're here."

"That's a-also something I was thinking about," Hinata said worriedly. Shino made an acknowledging sound for her to continue but didn't turn to her. "I'm by the gate right now. I can see that Kakashi man standing over there. It's probably only 30 feet a-a-away. Can't I just g-go home right now? You seem like a n-nicer person—"

"Can't, sorry."

"Why?"

"I'm not messing with another male's female." Shino said bluntly. "I may as well shoot a priest during church. It's unholy for one thing, and wrong for another. Kiba's my friend, even if he is an ass. I wouldn't do that to him. I would never touch something precious of his."

"So you, too, then?" Hinata mumbled, her head hanging a little lower than before.

"Me too, what?" Shino said, sitting down by a shaded tree in a large grove. Hinata could see that in this space they were relatively hidden and even if Kiba happened to be watching from his window he wouldn't see them. This thought of extreme privacy with a male made her arm twitch, even if it was only one like Shino.

"You too, another person who says I can't leave." Hinata sat down next to Shino and leaned her back against the tree as well, feeling thankful for the cool shade. She looked up at Shino and made a small note of how much taller he seemed when her small, short self sat by his muscled, tall form. But the thought of height difference couldn't keep her mind of Kiba and how he was a possible danger. She made a small sobbing sound.

Shino cocked his head to the side like a confused dog but Hinata missed the action. "Kurenai told m-m-me I'm Kiba's, and I c-can't leave, Kiba said 'she's mine' when I… met you in the hall and now you're saying th-that I'm his, too…I don't u-u-understand it. Can…Can you please…explain that…in depth, so I ca-ca-can understand, too?"

Shino's dark brows raised and one could tell that his eyes, behind his slick shades, were wide as saucers. He took a quick look at the way they'd come into the grove, a gap in a wall of yellow-green vines, as though suspecting someone to dash through and accuse them of something. He turned back slowly to Hinata and put his arm around her back.

Even through his thick jacket Hinata felt his warm arm against her, and gave an eerily soothing feeling. She wondered to herself why she didn't even flinch at the new contact. "So…you want me to explain that?"

"Yes, thanks."

Shino looked at Hinata, her head buried into her knees, and stared for several long minutes. His look softened over time and he didn't avert his eyes. "Okay…"

He forced his eyes away from the slightly-weeping Hinata and chose to look at insignificant ladybug flittering on a tree branch several feet above his head. "We have a way of doing things around this place. The customs are so far different from yours…you need to understand the basics first."

"Basics?" Hinata repeated. "What basics?"

Shino clenched his arm for a moment and tensed all muscles, preparing for something close to a heart attack. "Did Kiba…_tell _you?"

"A-About…what?"

"You saw his…his nails, right? And his teeth? And Akamaru?"

"Yes h-h-his teeth and nails are a little long and…what's Akamaru?"

"His pet dog. Little white thing. You didn't see him?"

"…No."

"Well, you noticed the teeth and nails, right?"

"Yes. The teeth…maybe his parents had something…" Hinata still hid her face between her knees, but in her little shell her ears began to warm, as Shino's arm still looped over her back. "The-the-the nails…if he could trim them it would help him, and m-me, too. Long nails are bad…and they're really pointed, too."

"Do you know why they were pointed?"

"He doesn't c-cut them?"

"He doesn't really need to for one thing…for another…here, look." Shino extended his free arm and showed Hinata his hand. Hinata looked up at Shino's hand, and was confused for a moment as to why he would put his hand in her face, when she saw his pointed nails.

Hinata flinched at the memory of feeling Kiba's sharp, pointed nails stroking her face when she'd first seen him and he'd pinned her. "Why…do you have…sharp nails, too?" Shino withdrew his hand and flexed his fingers. They cracked. Hinata nodded with satisfaction that someone other than herself could crack their fingers just by moving them around, but was confused when two ladybugs landed on his knuckles and settled on his index finger.

"Hold on." He told her. Her brought his hand closer to his face and the ladybugs buzzed a strange sound. The small girl watched and waited. _'Is he…talking to them?' _The first ladybug flew away but the second stayed a minute longer, buzzing loudly and flapping it's tiny wings all over. It left soon after finishing it's buzzing business.

"Sorry." Shino muttered. "Message, nothing to worry about." Hinata narrowed her eyes. "Don't play around!" She said, not noticing how her voice seemed to get a little louder and somehow bolder. "You can't talk to ladybugs! Now please, tell me about why I'm Kiba's!"

"I will, just look at my nails." He showed her his hand again. Hinata scrunched up her nose. "They're sharp and pointy, I s-see that!" Shino made a frustrated sound and responded, "Can you understand _why?" _

"No, I can't." Hinata said back, pale silver eyes narrowing uncharacteristically. "Please, tell me why I'm Kiba's!"

"Can't you see it?" He fisted his hands and they cracked when they all touched together.

"Shino, stop it!"

"Do you see it or don't you?"

"Shino!"

"Look!"

Shino withdrew his arm from around Hinata's back and showed both his hands to her. Out of nowhere his pointed nails jumped up, suddenly becoming twice their length and gaining a new sharpness. He curled his fingers around Hinata's face, now a picture of confusion and fear.

"W-W-W-What h-h-happened to your…n-nails!"

"Hinata, listen to me closely." His long, threateningly sharp nails curved around the air, drawing no-nothing patterns. "Do you know why Kiba pinned you when me met you? Why he submits to Kurenai? Why we live out in the middle of the mountains? With no other people?"

"No!"

"Do you know why he thinks that you're his?"

"No!" Hinata screwed her eyes shut in fear.

"It's because we're _demons_, Hinata!" Still her eyes remained tightly shut. He pulled his nails away and they became their normal (as normal as his nails would be) length. "Think about it for a little. Why do you think I can do this with my claws?"

"…c-Claws?"

"Yes, claws. Not long nails. Claws, like an animal would have." Hinata slowly buried her head deep between her knees, not wanting to look at Shino anymore. "And Kiba's pointed teeth? Not unnatural at all, like you think." He placed his hand gently on Hinata's back. At the contact, Hinata didn't flinch. She thrashed, and with a cry. But after a few moments, she let his hand massage her tensed back.

"Kiba's a dog demon, if you didn't guess." Hinata's back didn't get any looser. "We have different types. Take a guess as what mine is, if you want." Without any thought, she small girl with dark hair and silver eyes replied, "Bug."

"Right." Shino whispered soothingly. "I'm a bug demon. I can talk to bugs. Amazing, ah?" Hinata didn't take the joke, so he continued. "Kurenai is an essence demon. She can mold herself to become one with anything: a tree, water, as long as it's bigger than her. And she can come out of it, of course, she can catch enemies that way. Mold into a tree, wait for an enemy to stand on the tree, then attack them from behind from a place they never thought to look: their own hiding spot."

(AN: This is of course based on Kurenai's little genjutsu that she used on Itachi in episode 81. Or 82. Something like that. It failed, of course, but I liked watching her become a tree and come halfway out of it with a kunai in her hand and Itachi "trapped" below.)

Hinata took a ragged breath and tried to speak. "So that's why Kiba…think I am his? Because he's a demon and he doesn't know any better?" Shino shook his head. "No, more complex. Demons aren't what you believe. We think and live just like a normal person would, with some exceptions like life spans and partners."

"Partners?"

"Mate. As an animal may have one, demons will also have one. Don't be shaking like that, it's not vulgar or frightening at all. As I was told, it's beautiful. You have one chance in life to get once, two if you're truly lucky or if they die. It's more powerful than marriage, like you humans have. A mate is bonded to their partner for life, and there is no divorce unless the relationship is terrible abusive. They share thoughts, or read each other's mind if you want to say it that way, and emotions as well. It's hell on one hand and heaven on the other." There was some sort of scoff from under Hinata's knees.

"So that's why Kiba think I'm his? Because he wants me for a mate?"

"Yes."

"Damn."

666

That didn't end like I wanted it to, but I can't do anything about it. It's almost 1 AM and I can't drag this on any longer. My mom's been making coughing noises upstairs and I'm afraid she's going to come down and catch me on here. I'll die…again. To add to that fear my head is spinning, since I haven't been getting a good amount of sleep lately. I've been having dreams more than usual, (Okay…people have dreams every night of their life, but they just can't remember them. Scientific fact. I just remember more of mine nowadays.) sometimes they freak me out. They're like movies, you have no idea what kind of idiot created them but it's really weird to watch the first time. For dreams, there is no second time, though…whatever.

So I cut it a little short. I'm sorry, but it is longer than I originally thought. I wasn't really motivated to type this. I sort of felt obligated to do it, like I owed you guys. But you did deserve it, I guess, so here it is. I know I will take less than a month for chapter 8, I swear to God!

Ta…an exhausted Storm.


	7. To Stay

ONCE AGAIN ANOTHER RIDICULOUSLY LONG WAIT! I'M SORRY!

I was pretty damn uninspired for awhile. Yesterday and the day before I was sick to my stomach, puking 5 times in one day (no, really) and wanting to sleep off stomachaches and headaches but not being able to, and all that. I went home from school early and I thought I'd be able to type a chapter of something with two days' free times, but I found I could barely move and had to ask my grandmother to do the simplest of things, like put in The Lion King in the VCR for me to watch. (And I felt the tension and movie magic during the "stampede/Mufasa's death" and "can't wait to be king" scenes. Isn't it just one of the best ones Disney ever made?) And just walking to the bathroom made me dead tired, so...I couldn't do anything about it the last couple days.

But NOW...I was thinking about Blackbelt's Danny Phantom story, _Dare You To Love Me, _just after I walked my dog today, and somehow that gave me a quick inspiration run. I just got back from Applebee's for my little cousin's 11th birthday and I've got some good hours, and then Sunday morning since I won't be going to church. :) What the hell.

**Dani's Random Fox:** Ah, shit, I did...goddammit--SORRY! It's fixed here! Well...if he's demon that means...well, of course he'll live longer. Just don't know by how much.

**Black Phantasy: **Replied to, of course! If you leave a good one, so good that I must personally thank you, then of course it will be replied to. And you're right! "Demons" just explains (most of) it all, doesn't it? We have no clue why Kiba, the demon, would like Hinata, the human. No offense to them at all, we just don't know why a demon would have interest in a human. I know myself the ending could have been better. I was tired that night and my mind was shutting itself down but I needed to get it done...so as a result, it wasn't the best it could be. At least I know it was decent, ja?

**FRJPCourageofaGuardianAngel: **So many others were about to burst and I just sat there typing Blood Lust. I feel shitty for it and you guys deserved this.

**switchblade-boarder: **You're welcome.

**bitty-chan: **It's okay. Everyone goes through crap. I just decided to tell people about what mine was like.

**The Norwegian Dragon: **Damn indeed.

**EXGaara: **I know. Aren't I just pathetic? Staying up beyond my mind's capacity and still trying to go further? And in the end it wasn't even that good? Pathetic indeed.

**Angels-Ramen: **The last few sentences are probably what I worked the hardest on. I didn't know what Hinata should say for her reaction to that. I too, too, wish blackbelt would update more. The best ones always update on the worst schedule. And my trip to Missouri was pretty damn good, thank you!

**in luv with cold hearted guys: **Me, too. Sort of.

**LostsoulofRegret: **I really didn't know how else for him to say it. "Yo, Hinata. Hey, check out meh claws! Ya know, I'm a demon!" How 'bout that, huh? At least it came out decently, well according to what people are telling me.

**PeptoDismal: **Less than a month...hehe, and here we are 3 months later. Isn't it just dreadful? And you're welcome about your name. You admired your own wit with purpose! And I know myself. I took a cap-ful of the stuff when I was sick. I puked it up, of course. Not only was my stomach not even strong enough to handle medicine, the stuff is just plain shit. You aren't supposed to swallow something that THICK! Medicine, puh!

**shriveled.up.heart: **Informative? Haven't thought of it in that way. Sweet. Hinata had to be naive in her own way. Not "Naruto" naive exactly, but...refusing to accept the truth, I guess.

**Blackxheart: **A month? Well, you just need to sleep for a month! Hibernate. Or at least sleep in till noon once every couple weeks. That's what I do on some Sundays. (Skip church. ) Hehe.) Too much computer equals no sleep? That's crazy! I'm on the computer till 1 AM and I sleep in till 10 if I want. Your eyes may be worse than mine! And the dreams...I WISH I could remember mine more. I recall one or two Naruto dreams since my obsession with it started a little less than a year ago. One of which involved Sasori, Sasuke and Sakura in biology class. Sasuke ruffled Sakura's hair with his hand on his way into the classroom like she was his kid or something and they learned how to dissect some animal I didn't recognize. I remember they had to cut off three legs but leave the other one on for some reason about bone marrow. But now I'm probably ranting on you. So I'll leave you with the comment that remembering a dream longer than normal is NOT bad. In fact, I think it makes you smart. You have enough memory and intelligence to keep a dream in your mind for that long. Congrats, Black. You're smart.

**jadsjkf: **Impeccable? No one's ever said that before. I appreciate your comments, truly.

**Rukusu Yamato: **There's a chapter left? Didn't you just review the last one? Oh well. Thanks.

**Kenzie493:** Yup. Apparently she moved in the fifth grade, but I did know her. Everybody liked her and the teacher always misspelled her name for some reason. Everything has worked out for me and I am glad myself that I updated. I know most authors do that but they all probably feel crappy for doing it. It's good you had a bully-protector-unit. I never had any bullies. Never said anything, never got in trouble. I think that's the best way to go around. The Hinata way, I guess. She never got really "bullied" and I don't count her family because they didn't taunt her or anything, just looked down on her. Your dream sounds...interesting. I would have liked to see it. A girl n' Kiba, journeyin' through the land to find the infamous yellow lizard, in the belly of the big snake!'Course your review is interesting, too. VERY long, VERY nice to read. I know it was dramatic how Shino was acting...but I really didn't know how else to make him say it. As I said in another review reply, he couldn't just go, "Yo, Hinata! Check out meh claws! Hey, I'm a demon, by the by!" At least it got out.

**Ryoko.K.J: **I adore that story. Best KibaxHina out there, I think! I would NEVER quit any of my fanfictions! I would take a long break from them, sure. But I would never quit them. So don't get mad.

**Torn00: **Quite a good ending, indeed.

**MewKatari: **Thank you...update commenced.

**Kyuubi92: **I need fluff, too. I just don't find myself good at making it. Moving ain't fun AT ALL, you're right. I got torn off my best friend just because of money. I still believe my life back there was better, despite the shit I went through all the time. The school here sucks ass and I hate everyone there. Of course, this is LIFE and not my FANFIC. We all know happiness can be found on this site, ja? I'm on here all the time! At least I'm updating now, and isn't that good?

**SpicyShani: **You like all of it? Sweet.

**hinataheiress: **Go KibaxHina fans, right back at you.

**fieryice.t: **Possessive. Yeah, I guess that could work out here. I wasn't sure if he was quite fit to be called that at this point. What do you think?

**Kiba-ish: **I know...I just have the least inspiration for this one. It's unfortunate, is all I can say. I'm hurrying as fast as I can right now.

666

April 5th, 2:09 PM

666

_AN NOTE _

I need to mention that Konoha is NOT a shinobi Village in this story. It's just a Village, a place where people live. And Byakugan is sort of a hereditary, coincidental trait. It is something that just the Hyuugas can just do, just like the way that some people can snap their fingers and others just can't. There are no such things as ninjas. (So the few instances when I said that Neji left to train, I believe in the first or second chapter, was likely because he's taking a martial arts class.) Also, Hinata is/will be making a lot of references/memories of Sakura because she is her _best friend. _Hinata will sometimes recognize a gesture as something Sakura used to do because she spent a lot of time with her, many years.

_AN NOTE END _

Shino sat in dead silence, staring at the grass. Hinata was just beside him, her head sunk between her knees and not making a sound. No breeze was there to even make the grass flow. He could feel tension and wondered if it would be himself or her to spark it.

"I'm sorry," He said quietly. Hinata lifted her head to look at him with bored, almost careless eyes. "I didn't know how else to say it. You were...being difficult." Hinata put her head between her knees again. He wasn't being quite helpful. To find something to do, the demon uttered a low-pitched sound, inaudible to human ears. Seconds later a wasp had landed swiftly on his knuckle. It's antennae swiveled around, waiting for a message to hear and pass.

He whispered a quick word or two to the creature. It's little wings zipped up and down a dozen times in half a second in acknowledgement, and it hurried off into the air to find the she-beast called Kurenai. The wasp now knew that a female called Hinata needed to be comforted. Of course, being just a bug, it didn't know what the hell that meant.

Hinata broke the tension herself by slowly standing up and looking down at the sitting Shino. It was likely a self-conscious human way of trying not to be intimidated, he guessed; making herself look taller than him. "So...you have my diary now, right?" He nodded at her, and took the little black book out of his big pocket, held it up to her in his palm like a waiter holding a china dinner plate. Hinata took it from his hand and held it to her chest. "There's things in here I think h-he would tease me about..." She began. "Who my b-best friend is...stupid things I've done before...something I'm a-afraid of--"

"Thunder?"

Hinata literally jumped when he said the word, but Shino wasn't looking at her. He looked away and at the ground, as though ashamed he knew. "I didn't read it. But I saw your face before we left his room." He explained quickly. "We've been waiting for a storm here for awhile. Dry air can get annoying in spring. Kills plants and all that. I saw the clouds gathering for rain, and you looked horrified when you saw them."

Hinata looked at him for several minutes, but his gaze seemed gorilla-glued to the grass. She didn't say a word, only waited for him to continue, and he soon did. "It's not something to be ashamed of. Plenty of humans are scared of thunder." Hinata turned away, her back to him and her pose stiff. "And demons aren't?" There wasn't a reply to that particular question. "Come with me. I think you'll want the rest of the things from your pack."

"Nothing that I'd want now." Hinata said quickly. "Just a snack, a bottle of something to drink, and a good luck charm."

"You wouldn't want your charm back?" He asked, standing up. Hinata drew in a sharp breath as she considered her reply. The charm was a tuft of silver fur from Moonbeam's pelt. It had gotten rubbed off in the backsack when the cat had found her way into the cloth thing and tried to hide in it some years ago. That piece of hair always seemed to bring luck and it meant something special to her. "It's just a piece of fur from...from one of my cats. I can always pluck a-another off." Gulping to encourage herself to keep going, knowing what she was saying wasn't true at all, she added, "It wouldn't mean anything to him."

"Doubtful," Shino said, walking to stand beside her. "If he knows it's yours, he'll want to have it for himself." Shino knew the truth in this statement, more so than Hinata did.

"What's that mean?" Hinata whirled on Shino, tightening her grip on her diary. "It's just fur. You said he had a dog--he can pluck off fur from his own pet! Tell him that!" The bug demon shook his head. "You heard me: if he knows it's yours, he'll want it. What happened with the diary just a bit ago? He wanted to read it because it's yours and wanted to learn about you. It's his own childishly sick way." Hinata's eyes were wide with hate and disbelief. "Okay." She said, particularly slowly. "I want Moonbeam's fur tuft back. Would he have it, right now?" Shino shrugged. "Was your diary in your pack when you first came out into the forest?"

"Yes. I never took anything out but a snack to eat with Sakura."

"Then he obviously has your pack right now." He ignored Hinata's eyes growing ever wider. "Come to think of it, I was talking to Kakashi before--Kiba walked out through the Gates right past us and into the woods. He probably left to get your pack, and found the diary in it. Yes, he probably has it right now...looking through your things, no doubt."

"Looking at my stuff? But-But all I brought was food and a drink!"

"Then he'll probably find your cat's fur most interesting."

"He can't take Moonbeam's fur, Shino!" Hinata cried, stomping her foot. Shino's head reared back in surprise at the motion. "He...He just can't! I don't want to go back in his room again, I-I-I just get so scared, but I want that tuft back. Can you show me b-back to his room? Please?" She put on a look of honest and sincere hopefulness, asking, no, begging for Shino to take her back, as she didn't know the way herself. Because of the ever-present shades, Hinata couldn't see the pondering look in his eyes. It took a half a minute for him to say, "...Fine. But I'm not going in there myself. I won't tramp around his territory like it's mine...I promised I wouldn't touch you, and I won't."

_'I can't.' _

666

April 5th, 2:22 PM

(For once, most of Hinata's thoughts are hidden and we went into Shino's mind for a bit and saw his point of view. I won't do that a lot. The last sentence/phrase or two may be considered spoilers.)

666

"Here?"

"Yes."

Shino stood several feet from the maroon-painted door and the silver knob, and Hinata was directly in front of it. She would have liked to run back outside and hide behind those concealing trees they'd been by before. However, that single little piece of hair meant something to Hinata, in the same way an old, torn teddy bear meant something to a grown adult. It brought her luck on her adventures, and whenever she wore that particular backsack and went anywhere, she seemed to have a good time. It came from one of her precious cats, one of her precious friends from deep in her childhood and up to the present as well.

Besides, Padfoot and Moonbeam were way back home in the Village. If she was lucky, Neji or Sakura would feed them. According to everyone here, she would never be allowed to leave. That fur, tuft, good luck charm, _thing, _was all she had to remember her cats. She _had _to get it back...or she might lose the memory of them for the rest of her life.

"Are you planning to go in this afternoon?"

"Don't rush me!" She immediately looked down at her bare feet after snapping at him so. Before she'd turned her head down, she'd seen his brows shoot up in surprise. "Oh, geez..." She took in a sharp breath, thought out a quick plan to help her through this--get the fur and get out real fast--and lunged her small hand for the knob. Turning the thing as quick as she could to keep fear out of her mind, Hinata rushed the door open and dashed inside.

The room was dark as it was the other two times she'd been in here. The window was closed and the fireplace at the other wall unlit. Even the open door seemed to offer little light. The outline of the bed could barely be made out. She heard Shino walk behind her. She detected the sound of him putting his hand on the door. "I'm not allowed to stay here," He muttered. "Good luck." Within the moment the door was closed, leaving the poor, small girl in total darkness. She said nothing, not even daring to use her family's trait of Byakugan. If he was here, hiding somewhere in his room, then she'd rather be snuck up on than actually _see _him creeping towards her.

"...Kiba...?" She whispered. _'Maybe he's not in here...maybe I should find Kurenai...she could _make _him give the fur tuft back, couldn't she? Yes, I think so...I-If I asked her nicely, she would! Okay, I should just leave before--' _

"Yeah?"

_'Never mind.' _

"...W-Where are you? I can't see..."

"I'm on my bed."

"I wanted to...to ask you something. Can I open a w-window? It's awfully dark..." Just then the fireplace flickered on out of nowhere. The room was lit up by the natural glow and Hinata did indeed see Kiba sitting casually on his bed, his hands behind him propping him up and one leg crossed over the other. He stared into the fire with a look that was very similar to the look Sakura's boyfriend, Sasuke, often had on his face. Sasuke, as Hinata remembered him, never seemed to be quite a _happy _fellow. Despite the fact that he was around her almost all the time when Hinata wasn't, and the slightly more odd fact that he refused to let her be around any other guy, even that lifeless friend of hers Shikamaru, Sasuke was Sakura's boyfriend and she seemed to enjoy (or take humor in) being with him. With this hard and cold Sasuke-like look, Hinata was almost frightened to move another step towards him. "You wanted to ask me something?" She nodded and took a wobbled step towards him, then another and another until she stood at the front of his bed, hands laced flat on her stomach to look polite.

"I had...um, a little piece of fur in my backsack before I came here." She started off, slowly. "It came off my cat when she crawled i-i-inside and, oh...it's been a good luck charm to me for a long time. Shino thought you---that...that you might have it. I would like it back, please." She saw his eyes narrow down to tiny, dark slits. "Sit down...there." He used his left hand and patted gently at a spot next to him on the bed. _'Sakura, lend me your bravery and maybe your filthy tongue for a bit...!'_ She did as told, surprised when he didn't even turn around to see if she'd really sat down by him.

"_Shino _thought I might have the fur?" He repeated. Hinata tightened her whole body. She could tell that Shino wasn't wanted around her, despite how ridiculous she truly thought this to be. "...Yes. He also...told me about...that." By motioning with her hand, and hoping she didn't look like she was rudely pointing, she gestured to Kiba's claws--which she admitted now were just that, _claws_--and agonizingly slowly his eyes floated down to look at his own hand. "Claws." He stated simply. She nodded at him, looking away. She hoped he would figure what she meant, since at the moment he seemed more...intensely calm. His eyes widened and donned a curious, realizing look she'd seen on him before; a more familiar one, she might add, which made her more at ease. "Oh." Soon again, though, they became the Sasuke-like hard stare, and returned to glaring into the fire.

"Well, you know he's one, too, right?"

"Y-Yes." She nodded swiftly. "A bug demon. And Kurenai is...is essence." Kiba's fists clenched. "And _Shino _told you? Shino?"

"He wasn't doing anything but helping me! Same as Kurenai!" She defended immediately, trying to reason with him in his own ways. "Kurenai is a female." He said flatly, as though it were the most obvious fact of Earth. Hinata decided to ignore this and continued. "I was-I was...I was scared when I was lost in the hall, looking for you and my diary--"At this point Hinata paused briefly to realize she'd brought the diary in here with her, and she was in fact sitting on it--"and the second time he just w-wanted to help me...help me understand why I couldn't leave, and n-now I do." At this he turned his full body towards her, looking with searching eyes, letting her see all of his face instead of just the left half. But this wasn't the best thing for her to see at the time.

Hinata slapped her hand across her mouth and choked back a cry. Kiba's right cheek had 5 red, long marks crawling down it. Two of them had gone over his eye and the end of one of them was still bleeding. "What--What...What happened? Someone cut you! Ah!--Who?" The brunette boy tossed his head, shaking his hair, and made a smirk. Not like the few she'd seen creep onto his face before. No, this one was happy, almost prideful--a face she recognized from Sakura many times, when she told Sasuke off. "Just Kurenai." He laughed. "A warning claw. Told me you're scared enough already; and to back off of you...Can't say it worked!" The last sentence reminded Hinata that she'd almost forgotten her growing detest for him.

Apparently not seeing her horrified face, Kiba continued, "It's fine, it'll go away soon...But...you said you knew why you can't leave?" Feeling her ears warming, Hinata looked away with wide eyes to look at the quite interesting floor. "...Y-Y-Yes." Since she wasn't looking, Hinata could only hear and feel the shift on the bed as he turned away from the direction of the fireplace and moved closer, and soon enough felt his breath on her ear. Quite warm, she felt. "Shino's never wrong." He whispered.

Of all times on Earth, of all times in this place in which Hinata had yelled and snapped, she wished she could again. Of all times Sakura's enraged spirit and filthy tongue could have blessed her...it wasn't now. She was frozen to the spot, with a tall boy breathing down her neck. Was that his hand coming closer, or her eyes feeling the blur of firelight?

Nope, it was a hand. She was quite sure of that when it decided to rest on her shoulder. She kept her head down, staring at the bedspread and her own tense fingers. If she turned one way, she'd see his hand, complete with claws, rubbing her shoulder that was starting to feel very relaxing, or the rest of him, probably staring at her with an emotion she'd rather not see. "No..." She heard him say, though she wasn't sure if it was directed to her. "Shino has never been wrong once in his life. He speaks the truth and the facts...He knows that I'm starting to like you..."

Hinata felt her ears getting hot.

"Your name is so soft and pretty...and suites you so well, you know? It's small but beautiful!"

Very hot ears.

"Small and beautiful is exactly what I would say." He moved closer, using both his hands to pull her back against him, until she leaned back onto his chest. She still looked down and away from him, not moving a single muscle. You _are_ beautiful, Hinata."

Burning ears!

"I hope you're not dead from being so tight." He laughed. "I'll help with that. I'm good at it." Slowly and surely she felt the hands again, both on her back this time, moving up and down and releasing the furious tightness in her muscles. Her hands remained in tight fists, however loose her shoulders and back became. "Still uncomfortable..." He sighed, and she felt him shake his head. "Gotta get rid of that. You wanna meet Akamaru?"

"Akama--your...your dog?"

"Shino?"

"Shino's not a dog!"

"Stupid. Did Shino tell you I had a dog?"

"Oh." Hinata closed her eyes and bit her tongue, feeling a burning wave of embarrassment. A feeling she'd known all her life, but would never get used to. Never. "Um...yes. He said it was little and white." Kiba made an approving sound. "He is! Come on, he's probably with Haku and Keiga." As Kiba stood up and stretched, yawning and cracking his muscles as he's seen Hinata do in one of their first meetings, Hinata herself was taking an opportunity. She took her diary from under her rump where she'd "hidden" it through that whole little episode, and slid it under his bed. The deep red covers nearly touched the floor, and it would be hidden for sure. He wouldn't look at it again.

"Ahhh...okay, that was good. Ready?" Before waiting for an answer, he took her small hand in his rougher, large one and pulled her along out of the room. Hinata noticed that Shino had gone. Well, then again, he had closed the door. She looked back at Kiba's bed, more towards the floor. She could come back later and get it from under there. Undoubtedly, she'd be going back in there soon enough.

666

April 5th, 2:19 PM

666

"You...read? Books?" The reply was coarse and completely indignant. "Of course I read! What the hell kind of person would I be if I didn't know how to read? A retard, that's what I'd be! And I'm not a retard, _as you can see."_ This made her laugh, despite her detest towards the boy.

Kiba had led Hinata up and down endless stairways and corridors, turning around various times, either at a dead end or in the middle of an average hallway. After talking to himself several times, asking Hinata questions about navigation, and answering said questions himself, _and _having an odd run-in with a purple haired woman Hinata saw in the parlor, named Anko, (Hinata believed she was insane, and became afraid of her from then on) Kiba had found a huge set of double doors at the end of a ridiculously long hallway. They were crafted from cherry wood, as Hinata observed, what with being an "elegant" Hyuuga. Kiba didn't seem to care, only commenting that the wood was "shiny" and leaving it at that.

He'd had a serious conversation with Hinata, (or himself, considering he answered all the questions he asked her) about how to open the doors, apparently not noticing the rectangular, gold plates on the doors, suggesting one had to push them open rather than pull. He had backed up halfway into the corridor, so far back Hinata could scarcely see him, ran straight into the doors and slammed them open with his shoulder. After Hinata was finished worriedly berating him for possibly scraping the wood, Kiba had turned her away from the door, ignored he fact that Hinata practically jumped into the air as he touched her, and forced her to look at the room.

It was a library. A library as tall as a church and a half, with incredibly high walls and a suddenly-;rounded ceiling and a dozen windows and skylights, all stained glass, painted into pictures of various beasts and creatures. The biggest windows were smack in the middle of the walls, making a space where books didn't dominate. The smallest, well, the smallest-looking, were high up in the ceiling, and from the floor, their shapes couldn't be made out, even with Hinata's spectacular vision. The walls themselves were completely taken up with shelves, and the shelves were filled to the rim with a hundred-million books, all colors, all organized, all around the room. Several rolling ladders were positioned high or low on the walls, ready to be walked upon for one to grab any book they pleased. The floor was smooth and shone with a recent polish, topped in several places with huge sofas and coffee tables, some stacked neatly with books and others empty of all items. It was the biggest room young Hinata had seen in her life. For some reason the hugeness of the room made her ears warm.

"I...I...It's...This...It's **HUGE!"**

The word echoed all around the gigantic place, bouncing back and forth almost pleasantly. Kiba laughed at the echoes until his own were all around the room. Soon enough it was replaced with a repeating bark. Looking over, and not seeing the demon boy's mouth move, Hinata felt quiet terror growing in her heart. Who was...?

"Arf, arf, arf, RUFF!"

"Akamaru! Here, come here! Meet Hinata!"

Before the small girl had even a chance to turn around, she was tackled to the hard floor by something so fast and white she couldn't see what it was. Within the moment, the blurred thing stuck out it's tongue and proceeded to eat her alive while it's furiously-beating tail thwacked her on the stomach over and over again. She was going to die. _'God, save me! Get this monster off me! AAAAAAAAH!' _

But then the nightmare ended, and the thing was taken off.

"Oh, God...Jesus Christ, what the goddamn hell was that?!"

She slapped her hands over her mouth and screwed her eyes tightly shut. Sakura's filthy vocabulary...not needed right now, thank you! "You gonna open your eyes sometime today? Akamaru's not _always _in the library." Disregarding the odd notion that any dog would hang out in a library, Hinata took a risk She opened one eye just a slit and saw the outline of Kiba's slate-blue coat, and something little in his arms. She opened that eye fully but kept the other one shut. You never know, you know. "It's just Akamaru! My dog, remember? He doesn't bite unless I tell him to...and he wouldn't bite you anyway, if he likes you enough to pounce like that at first meeting!"

She barely had the courage to open both eyes. But they came open soon enough to see the little white dog, panting and wagging it's tail in Kiba's arms. She also noticed that the claw marks that had been on his cheek only 15 minutes ago were nearly gone. Had he healed that fast? Perhaps it was a demon's perk--

"Arf!" Her attention was drawn back to the dog. Was that the beast? That little thing as big as a duck had knocked her off her own feet and practically eaten her alive?! "Arf, arf!" It yipped, flailing it's little paws towards Hinata. Well. Apparently it was the beast that had about eaten her alive and knocked her off her own feet. Well.

Kiba set the dog down at his feet, and to Hinata's amazement, it stood where it was. "See? He's nice. If you just sit down and let him get to know you for a minute or two..."

"That thing isn't coming near me again!"

"Aww! Givvim a chance, ple-e-e-e-ease?" The dog whined along with him. A little scrap of fur, it seemed, but a super tough one. It had enough power to knock me totally over and keep me down on my back. But now it looked so...adorable.

"...Oh...uh..." That face. That cute face, and those lovely eyes. She could lose my own mind in them. It was crazy, unfair! That annoyingly adorable show of whining and pleading...it was almost pathetic. But puppy eyes won over everyone and everything. It was such a cute display that Hinata began to run out of words to describe it.

...Akamaru looked pretty pitiful, too.

So she nodded, quick so as to keep some dignity in her. Kiba motioned for her to sit down at the nearest couch, and she did. Right after, the little white thing called Akamaru seemed to fly straight up off the ground and into her lap. He was licking her hands, wrists and face all in the same second, barking every other minute. Through the panting and the barking and the licking, she could faintly hear Kiba laughing at the whole thing. Akamaru put his front paws on her collarbone and stopped licking enough for Hinata to look him in his slit-like little eyes. She felt a message in them, the way some people could understand each other just by giving a sort of look.

_Friend?_

Hinata tensed tighter than a drum. What was that? She hadn't thought that word! Where had it...? She hadn't been thinking at all? Where had it come from? The dog? Was it Akamaru?

_Friend? _The voice in her head came again. _Hinata, friend? New friend?_

It was Akamaru, no question. The eager look on those eyes and on that face, and in the way that the tail wagged...how the hell was he speaking to her? And how, in her _mind _could he be talking in her _mind?_ _'Perhaps I should...think something back...!' _

_Um...um...yes._

Akamaru jumped up and down in her lap. _Hinata is friend! Yay! Hee-hee...will not tell Kiba-friend! _

Hinata's eyes went wide. _You're not going to tell...Kiba?_

Akamaru's slit-like eyes opened, almost creepily. _Hehehe...Kiba-friend doesn't know _all_ Akamaru's secrets! _She tried not to give anything away in her expression. She hoped it worked, as Kiba was still on the floor laughing, so he didn't notice the utter shock in Hinata's face, had there been any. She couldn't tell if she had it in her face or not. _Kiba doesn't know you can talk to me...to others...in my--their--head? _The dog wagged his tail and licked her cheek twice. _Kiba-friend does not know! Hehe! Hinata-friend keep secret, please? _She nodded right away.

Turning her attention back to Kiba, who had been rolling on the floor laughing their whole "conversation" hoping she could distract him and not blab out the new secret, that his dog could telepathically communicate. Then again, even if he did know how to read as he claimed before, he may not know what those two words meant...hopefully, he wasn't the best reader in the world.

"And keep _out_ of here, Naruto! You can't read worth shit, so why the hell are you in the library?!"

"Well, I just wanted to find a nice bedtime story for tonight, but I guess if dog-bitch is in here, I'm not allowed!"

Hinata focused her blurry eyes onto the new person in the room. Oh! It was that blonde person! Now that she recalled it, Kurenai had introduced her to several people in the parlor at their eating time. That Anko lady from the hallway had been one of them, and this blonde boy was one, too. He had seemed too absorbed in his ramen at the time to even pay attention to her, but he had found time between bowls to look at her, smile, wave hello and go back to eating.

Now that she got a good look, she could actually see him. He was blonde, that was for sure, almost blindingly so, with such bright yellow-gold spiked hair it was probably absorbing sunlight as she breathed. His eyes, sparkling ocean-blue, were bright and happy, even more than Moonbeam's lovely, energetic blue ones. He was just as tall as Kiba, though the spiked hair added a few inches. He wore orange pants and a black-and-orange jacket, unzipped, showing bare, tan skin. Essentially, if one was looking past the long-sleeve jacket, he was shirtless.

Ears warming. Fast.

"Hey, I know you!" All of a sudden, the blonde boy was pointing at her. Akamaru was no longer in her lap and she was alone against his gleeful stare. Not good. "I saw you with Kurenai at lunch today! I was just eating with Haku, and then you came right up and said hi to me!" Hinata tried to smile. She hadn't actually said hi to him, rather, hidden behind Kurenai and feebly waved from around her arm. Naruto walked up to her and crouched down, looking into her eyes. Wow...very...pretty blue eyes he had. "Uzumaki Naruto, fox demon at your service, lady!" He performed a fake bow and got up again, looking down at her, while blinking almost childishly. "Ooh...Kiba wasn't bragging around the house all day for nothing--you _are_ cute!"

Even before her ears could get hotter, Naruto was knocked to the side by a clawed fist. The suddenness of it made Hinata jump back into the couch, knees to her chest and arms tight and straight to her sides. Naruto was on his back and rubbing his neck, now bearing two bleeding scrapes on his exposed collarbone with Kiba standing above him, both hands fisted and two dangerously sharp and long teeth--no, fangs--protruding out through his lip. He took a deep breath and made a sound that was so much like a growl Akamaru whined and backed away under a coffee table. Naruto froze to the spot, staring wide-eyed up at Kiba. He made no sound.

_"What," _The dog demon growled, "did.. I..._tell_ you? Huh?"

Naruto's lips moved, but there was no sound.

"I said--" But before he went on, Naruto interrupted, "I know, I know--don't touch..."

"Right!" Naruto lifted himself up, and dusted his hair and glanced quickly at Hinata. "Sorry," He said quickly. He grasped a book from the nearest table, gave another look to Hinata and left through the double doors where Kiba and Hinata had first entered. Hinata stared with gigantic, trembling eyes while Kiba growled after Naruto until he could barely be seen, and then again when the tiny orange shape turned down the far corner of the hallway. He wasn't anywhere near anymore.

Hinata stared down at the spot of floor where Naruto had fallen on his back. Droplets of blood were spattered on the perfect wood. "I don't really care if you miss your home." She snapped her head back up to look at him. He stared at her with that original rapist smile, the one she'd first seen on him, and hated and feared. "You can keep in contact. Write them a letter. Akamaru or Haku will have it sent. I'll have this done for you since I never wanted you sad. I really didn't...I still don't." It was a compassionate statement, but the terribly wicked smile took all the good feeling away.

He came up close faster than any person should have...put his hands on both sides, one beside one leg and one beside the other. His face was mere inches from hers. The problem of burning ears almost immediately spread all over her face. "I want your heart to soar, precious." He breathed. "Always be happy." His eyes sparkled. With wickedness, mischief...love?

"Please stay," He whispered.

Hinata was frozen, frozen on the outside, with the exception of her fiery cheeks, aflame with a brightly-burning blush. Inside...was something burning? Her stomach felt so...odd. So twisted, so churned, so tight. So uncomfortable.

What could she say? She wasn't allowed to leave anyway. She didn't even know the way out of the building, and apparently the guard wouldn't let her through, despite being a kind man. If she said no, would she be hit? Would she be clawed in his anger as Naruto had been? Kiba's claw scars from Kurenai had healed in minutes, likely because he was a demon...they must have healed faster. They must have. But she was only human. It could take days, weeks, to recover from a strike from him. Would he strike her at all? But what if she said yes? Sakura, Neji, Shikamaru, Sasuke, Father, Hanabi, Ino... She would never see any of them again. And what of...

Moonbeam and Padfoot?

Her precious cats? Her dearest companions, second only to her best friend Sakura? She would never see them again. All she had of them was a tuft of fur from Moonbeam.

_I have your cat fur. _What? Akamaru? Was he talking to her again? Hinata didn't dare avert her eyes from Kiba's, but listened closer for more. _Yes, I have cat fur. Took it from strange bag when Kiba-friend did not look. Have it in the canine-house, where us dogs sleep. Keiga, Kuro, Vandrer, and others, too. Outside. In garden. Safe. _Hinata smiled when she heard this from Akamaru. The demon boy in front of her took this as a positive sign. There was no missing the bright hope in his eyes.

But...what if she _did _say yes? Just agree to stay in a big mansion forever, living with a bunch of demon people? But that look in his eyes...it was getting to her..yet again. _'Dammit...Sakura, Neji, Moonbeam and Padfoot...I swear I will keep you in contact. I swear on my heart. Cross it and cut it, should I not hold my word. Right. That's how it goes.'_

"Well?"

There was a pause. A significant one, one must add.

"...Yes."

She'd only just finished saying the word! Before Hinata had known it, she'd been swept up right off the couch in a near-backbreaking embrace. She didn't return the action, though accepted it. And one should have seen! Hinata barely even flinched!

666

This should have been counted as satisfactory. I worked VERY hard on this! I tried to submit it Saturday night but the server or whatever was screwed so I couldn't. Today, Sunday morning, (I didn't go to church, haha:D) it STILL wasnt' working! But I really wanted to upload this, so I hatched an awesome plan. Chapter 5 used to be the AN note where I told you guys why I couldn't update anything in June or most of July. Since I can't upload any new documents, I got rid of the AN note! Yup. I deleted the note, and moved chapters 6 and 7 back one. So now, this chapter, what should have been chapter 8, is now chapter 7 because I deleted one and moved some back. Anyhow, I worked hard on writing this, and figuring a way to get it to you guys without uploadign a new document. (Exporting existent ones helped a lot though.)

But before I go down and do that I have to dedicate this chapter real quick. This may be a cute little honor for those who get it or may be something you don't give a crap about. I don't care.

This chapter would have to go to **Blackxheart**, especially since I discovered her sweet story _Imaginary Friend_ which I think is one of the best things I've read in a long time, especially for GaaxSaku.

Also to **PeptoDismal **since I can't get over how awesome and totally truthful that name is. Really. This should be the goddamn slogan.

…Also to everyone who wanted to stick me with a needle for not updating for two months…ahem.

I'm on my grandpa's computer now. It took me awhile to submit my Pokemon story to deviantART, per request of my online friend who doesn't know about my account here, and now I am uploading this...or uh, editing an exported document. Anyhow, this turned out to be 17 pages long. A job well done for me. Almost noon now. Grandparents will be home any minute from church so i should get off my Gramps' computer. Have a good read. It SHOULD be a good one.

Ta…Storm


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